A Day In The Life
by JSchneider
Summary: Naruto and Sasuke are supposed to be normal kids in their senior year of High School. But, what happens when everything seems to go wrong? I changed the AN in the first chapter, sorry to get your hopes up people.
1. One More Edited AN

**Ok, ok. Now that I'm finally starting to work this whole thing out, let's get started, shall we?**

**First, let's start with me. I started writing a story almost a year ago…I wrote about 6 chapters until I realized I didn't really know where the hell I was going with it, so I stopped. Since then, I have read a few stories here and there. Because of the influence of some online friends, I have also read a few Naruto X Sasuke stories. I could usually skip over the graphic sex parts, and that wasn't a problem, but what always seemed to astound me was some of the clichés that seemed to go with almost every one of those NaruSasu stories (like, every one and their brother being gay, that one annoyed me). So, to see if I could do any better, I decided to write one myself. I've always been fascinated with the way that these two characters are written against each other, so that has definitely helped with the ideas.  
**

**Ok, let's also get a few things **_**about**_** the story out of the way:**

**Sasuke **_**should **_**seem slightly OOC from what you'd expect from watching the series, but I did this on purpose. Remember that Sasuke, although he was a stuck up bastard, wasn't totally emo-depressed until after the family massacre. So, I'm going to save it here as well. (If you complain about me spoiling something, then get over it, what did you expect?)**

**Every once in a while, I'm going to try and post a song that you should play while reading the chapter in the. It's (obviously) very optional, but it could add to the coolness factor of the situation that the chapter involves. When I want you to start the song, look for a † symbol. If I have more than one song, and want you to change them in the middle of the chapter, look for a (†) symbol. Once again these are completely optional, but it should make the story more interesting. After all, life would be so much better with theme music, neh?**

**Right now (April 20, 2009), I have 6 chapters of this story completed. I originally planned on not posting this until I was completely done with it, but, in order to force myself to write more, I'm starting now. I'll post a chapter once a week (on Fridays) while I have them, but, if I don't update for a while, don't worry, I'm still working on it, it's just taking a while.**

**Alright, that should cover everything for this intro. Just try to read these AN's in order to see if there are any songs to play.**

**P.S.- To those of you who have read this story only to be disappointed by me for not writing anything else, I thank you for at least starting it. Don't worry, I haven't completely stopped writing it, I'm just a very busy person and also very lazy. I have chapter 10 open on Word almost all the time, I just never get around to writing anything there. I swear I'll finish this eventually. How else am I going to do the sequel?!  
**

Naruto Uzumaki, age seventeen, walked into Konoha High school. It was such a standard name for a city's high school, but he didn't really care. Today was finally the day. Today was both the first, and the last. It was the first day of his last year in high school. Finally, after 3 long years, he was here at the top of the food chain.

And boy was he hungry.

He was both happy and sad at the same time, happy because it was his last year, sad because…well, last year or not, it was still school. The only people who were happy to be at school were the girls, who couldn't seem to get enough of gossiping with each other, even though most of them didn't stay out of contact at all over the summer.

There _were_ two things, though, that he definitely _was_ happy about. First, the beginning of school meant that finally, it was football season. And, he didn't enjoy football season because of the football, oh no, he loved it for an entirely different reason.

Drumline.

That's right, Uzumaki Naruto, the self proclaimed coolest, smartest, sexiest, bestest blonde in the world…was a band geek. Sure, he would refer to it as a "Musical Professional", but everyone knew it as another term. Band Geek. But, the last thing Naruto cared about most of the time was other people's opinions, so he usually just let them think what they wanted. He had been in band since before highschool, and he had stopped caring about what people had to say long ago.

This year was different for the blonde though. Being that he was senior this year, Naruto was given the opportunity to try out for the leader of the Drumline, called the Captain. It was a position that he had coveted for the last 3 years of his High School career, and now that it was finally in his grasp, he was determined not to let it slip by.

There was one other thing that Naruto was happy for though, now that school had started. The beginning of school meant that, after long last, he would be able to see his friend who had been out of town the entire summer. He was his best friend, the only real friend that he hung out with after school. Sasuke Uchiha was his name, and as Naruto squeezed through the doors past the excited mass of freshmen and other students, he was there, leaning up against a nearby pillar with his usual, seemingly genetic, smug look on his face.

Naruto approached the bored looking teen from behind, hoping to get in a few good swings before he noticed. When he got about three feet away from Sasuke though, he was greeted by a short "Hn" sound.

"I know you're there, dobe." The boy in front of him said.

_Damn teme_ Naruto thought to himself as he walked into Sasuke's line of sight.

Wow, first day back, and already you start with the insults." Naruto said, literally bouncing on his toes in excitement.

"What's with you?" Sasuke asked, a single eyebrow moving up to hide beneath his bangs.

"What do you mean? Aren't _you_ excited to finally be a senior here?" Naruto said as a look of shock grew on his face at the thought that anyone couldn't be happy to be a senior.

"Hn, why should I be?" Sasuke asked.

"What do you mean, 'Why?' I mean, you get to tell freshmen to do whatever you want to, you get to get away with a lot more things than when you're younger, and not to mention-"

"One, I don't need freshmen to do anything, and two, I already get away with everything." Sasuke said as the smug look on his face grew into more of a smirk. With that, and the sound of the first bell, he turned on his heal, heading in the general direction of the Academic wing of the school. "C'mon dobe, let's get to class." He said. Being that Naruto and Sasuke's last names were the only two in the school that started with a U, they had the same exact classes as the other, except for one thing. Naruto would have his band class during 5th period, while Sasuke would have Football.

Yeah, that's right, Sasuke Uchiha played football. Not only that, but he was the quarterback of Konoha High's team. He went against every stereotype of a football player, much less a quarterback. Where the other players on the team almost always were the loudest, most distracting students in the classroom, Sasuke was the opposite, nothing more than a quiet little angel that aced all of his classes with little or no effort or noise.

Sasuke also defied the common idea of a football player's size. Most people were surprised that someone as slender as Sasuke could actually play football without intense bodily harm, but Sasuke was tougher than he looked. At five-ten and 165 pounds, he was skinny, but also he was limber. No defense seemed to be able to touch him.

Naruto was almost the same size as the Uchiha. He stood a good five-eleven, and clocked in at anywhere from 160-170 lbs, depending on how much Ramen he ate before he was weighed.

Naruto was the anti-thesis to Sasuke. Where Sasuke was quiet and serene, seemingly doing nothing more than acing his classes, Naruto bounced off the walls constantly. No one had any idea where he got the energy, Sasuke himself had often wondered how Naruto could sustain such energy without falling over from exhaustion by the end of the day, and he was the boy's closest friend. He used to teased Naruto when he was bored, saying that the boy started every day off right with a balanced breakfast of pure Nicaraguan Crack Cocaine, but that got boring pretty quickly.

Naruto jumped towards Sasuke, getting next to him, and matched step with him. That was one of the many things that being a drummer had embedded into him. He seemed to match step with random people he watched while he walked.

"So, where do we go first?" Naruto asked Sasuke as he barreled through a few freshmen that tried to stand their ground. Sasuke in the mean time had simply gone around the group, deciding that it would be easier to do that instead of shoving them away.

"Why should I even bother telling you? You'll just forget by time we get to the class after that. Just stick with me, I know where to-" Sasuke said right before he was interrupted.

"Hi there Sasuke-kun!" Screamed a high-pitched voice. At the sound, Sasuke rolled his eyes at the same time Naruto's eyes seemed to glow. They both turned around in time to see the bobbing pink hair plowing through the same group of freshmen as Naruto had. Different from his own experience though was the fact that the boys moved out of her way, blatantly ogling her as she passed, while she blatantly ignored them.

"Hi there Sakura-chan!" Naruto said excitedly as she approached. Ignoring him almost as bad as the freshmen, Sakura stared intensely at Sasuke, determined to make him look at her. Instead, he was looking off to the side as she approached. When she got to the two boys, she stood abnormally close to Sasuke, invading his personal bubble. Sasuke stepped back, making sure to exaggerate the movement, while Naruto moved slightly closer to the pink haired girl, hoping she might not notice.

He was faithfully denied when Sakura's hand reached into his face… to push it away. While she did this, Naruto couldn't help but think to himself that her hand smelt really good, like some sort of flower that he couldn't remember the name of. She must have bought some lotion or something.

"Hi there Sasuke-kun, how was your summer? I hope it was as amazing as mine was. Can you believe that we are finally, actually seniors? I'm so excited!" She exclaimed, and so began the usual process of Sakura blabbering, Sasuke pointedly ignoring her, and Naruto hanging on every word she said. When she finished, she turned to leave, but not before saying one last thing.

"Hey Sasuke-kun, why don't you ever talk to me?" She said, faking a hurt look. Sasuke didn't believe it for a second, and therefore didn't answer her. Naruto on the other hand, soaked up her expression like a sponge, believing that she was about to cry.

"Oh don't worry Sakura-chan, Sasuke's just an ass!" He said, a smile growing on his face at his chance to finally say something to the spunky pink haired girl. She turned to him, disgust showing on her face. With that, she took one last look at Sasuke, hoping that she might get him to at least say something. When he didn't she turned to leave.

"Well, I guess I'll see you later Sasuke-kun." She said, smiling at him as she walked away.

"Hn, thanks for the warning." Sasuke mumbled to himself as he turned back around to head back towards the classroom. Naruto quickly fell back into step with the brunet, rubbing that back of his head as they walked. Right before they entered the classroom, Sasuke turned to Naruto.

"Ok, what's wrong now?" he asked the blonde in front of him.

"I think she thinks I'm ugly." Naruto said hastily, looking away.

"You're not ugly." Sasuke said to him, the look on his face not changing in any way. Now it was Naruto's turn to shoot a single eyebrow up.

"Wow, um…that was really gay." He said, his smile returning to his face.

"Hn." Was all he got in return. Turning to enter the room, Naruto was startled by the hard punch to his arm that almost knocked him off balance.

"Ow, what the fuck man?" he said to Sasuke as the brunet brushed past him into the room. He turned to follow him into the room, rubbing his sore arm. As soon as he entered the room though, he was greeted by the voice of his teacher.

"Wow Naruto, already in trouble on the first day." Said the man behind the desk. The man was tall, and looked to be about 40 years old.

"What? I'm not in any trouble…" Naruto said confusedly to the man.

"You are now for that cussing at the door. Your detention will be here, after school." The teacher said, a small smile growing on his face as Naruto sighed, turning to his desk next to Sasuke.

"Sorry, I don't do detentions." He said under his breath. But of course, the teacher heard him.

"Excuse me, Naruto?" he said, his face going stern at the thought of back talk from a student on his first day.

"Hm? What?" Naruto replied, pretending he didn't know what the man was talking about as he sat down at his desk.

Deciding not to drag the conversation out anymore, especially on the first day, the teacher, Mr. Kanto, got up from his desk, walking towards the front of the room. The final bell rang as the last few students dodged into the room.

"Oh, don't worry you guys, take your time. You all have detention after school." Mr. Kanto said with a small smile on his mask. This statement drew a few groans from the students as they found the final seats that were still open. "Hey hey hey, don't give me that. You shouldn't have been late on the _first_ day of school." He said, his small smile growing slightly wider as the moaning ceased. "Ok, now that everyone is finally here" he said "My name is Mr. Kanto, and let me be first to welcome you to your senior year in your history class. Now, in case you haven't noticed already, I am not going to be lenient on you guys because it is your senior year. You need to be here at school and in your seats by the time that final bell rings. Otherwise, you will be late and therefore owe me detention after school." He said, looking around the room.

"Any questions?" He asked, although he knew the answer already.

Nobody said a word.

So began Naruto's first day of his senior year at Konoha High. Now he was beginning to remember why he didn't like the place.

_Lunch lunch lunch lunch three more classes, then lunch_ He thought to himself as he leaned back into his chair, completely blocking out the sound of the teacher's voice.

Sasuke, sitting to Naruto's left, was staring at the teacher, listening to what he was saying. After about 15 minutes, he looked back at Naruto, seeing that he was completely gone, not paying any attention to anything. With a sigh, Sasuke turned back towards the teacher.

**Alright, there we go. Chapter one is **_**finito!**_** So, tell me what you think. Don't worry about me not changing anything because I have some of the story set up, I'll change it if I like your suggestions well enough. So, review, tell me what you think, and have fun waiting a few days! **


	2. God Damn Day

**Alright, here we go again. Sorry that this first day of High School is going to take so long, I'm just trying to get some of the interactions down... Anyway, just a reminder, I'll be posting a new chapter up every friday for as long as I can, and also, don't forget that I will have music for you to listen to in certain chapters, if you so choose.**

**Enjoy**

Finally it was lunch. Naruto was about to die in his last class from the wait, even though he had eaten breakfast this morning. As he and Sasuke walked out of their 4th period class Naruto was barely able to contain the urge to sprint to his car. The only thing holding him back was Sasuke, who seemed all too determined to take it slow.

"C'mon Sasuke!" Naruto said, quickening his pace. The Uchiha didn't do anything, just kept walking at the same speed.

_Damnit man, hurry the hell up, you bastard. _Naruto thought to himself as he slowed back down to Sasuke's speed.

Sasuke, on the other hand, was enjoying the torture he was inflicting on the blonde next to him. Even after all these years, Sasuke still delighted-silently of course-in walking slowly towards Naruto's car for the lunch period. He had to admit that it was entertaining to make the boy, who was so dependent upon this time to get him through the rest of the day, squirm. There was something about making the Naruto squirm that made Sasuke's day a _little_ bit better. Maybe it was just revenge for having to deal with him through the rest of the day. No one could say for sure.

They finally approached Naruto's beloved car. A flamingly bright orange Mitsubishi Lancer. It was a few years old, which was the only reason Naruto had been able to buy the thing, but it still looked nice. Naruto took immaculately good care of it. It was his baby after all.

As they walked towards the appropriate doors, Naruto ran his hand along the top of the car, caressing it softly.

"Hey there beautiful." He said as he stopped at the door.

"Hey, could you stop mind-raping your own car long enough to unlock the doors, please?" Sasuke said irritably. Now that they were at the car, he was almost as eager as Naruto to get some food into his stomach.

"Ok fine you bastard." Naruto said as he put the key into the hole.(AN: hehe)

As they both climbed into the seats, Naruto leaned forward, putting the key in the ignition, and bringing the engine to life. When the engine rumbled, Naruto revved it a little at some passing students, who turned quickly towards the noise. Naruto smiled as he backed out of the spot.

"Dobe, close your door before you destroy some poor innocent child." Sasuke said, rolling his eyes.

"Oh shit!" Naruto said. _I can't believe I forgot to close my door! _He reached over to the handle, closing the door.

"Hit the brakes." Sasuke said, as he turned around. Naruto did without thinking, just narrowly avoiding a car that was now honking their horn at him.

"Wow, great start to the lunch period, ne?" Sasuke asked as Naruto pulled back into the parking spot to allow the car to pass him.

"Shut up teme, it's not my fault the underclassmen here don't know how to drive." Naruto said in reply.

"You tried to leave with your door open… I didn't see the other guy like that, did yo-oh, that's right; you didn't see the other guy at all." Sasuke said, the sarcasm leaking from his voice.

"Shut up and die teme." Naruto said, annoyed.

"Hn" was all he got in return as he started to back out again, making sure to check both ways, and to make sure everything was closed on the car except the windows. Pulling quickly out of the parking lot, Naruto started to drive towards Sasuke and his' usual eating place.

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As they approached the tiny little restaurant that they usually went to, Naruto's stomach decided to make itself known to the world. With a loud grumble that both of them heard and felt, Naruto pulled into an open spot. Or, he would have, had the car coming from the other side not pulled all the way through, almost hitting Naruto.

"Wow… and how long ago did you get your license again?" Sasuke asked, his smirk growing on his face.

"Once again, shut it and die…you bastard." Naruto said as he pulled around to the other side to get in the spot that the offending car had pulled through. When they pulled in, Naruto quickly clambered out, as though the car was suddenly on fire. He bolted towards the door to the restaurant, eagerly awaiting the food. But he soon turned to find that Sasuke was, once again, taking his sweet ass time. He was barely now closing the door to the car and starting his slow walk towards the door.

"C'mon damnit!" Naruto said again.

"Hurry inside if you want to, I'll just let you pay for it." Sasuke said with a wry smile.

"You know the deal, I drive, and you pay the meal." Naruto said for what seemed like the millionth time since the two had started going to lunch.

They had a small deal between the two. Naruto lived alone. Because of this, he rarely seemed to have any money, except what the government sent him every month and what he earned at his small part-time job that didn't really pay him that much. Because of this, Sasuke would always pay for the boy's lunch as long as Naruto did the driving. Not only was it convenient for Sasuke to not have to drive, but his ride wasn't even allowed on the school's property. He had to park it a block away from the school in order to not get a ticket for it.

The two approached the counter of the restaurant. Sasuke stared at the cashier, a simple, confused looking girl who was obviously blushing at the two boys in front of her. While Sasuke glared at her, wondering how long she'd last before she looked away, Naruto, completely oblivious as he was, stared intensely at the menu, trying to decide what to get.

"Um, welcome to Burger Joint, what can I get for you guys?" The girl asked sheepishly.

"I'll take the usual, same with teme here." Naruto said with a nod of his head towards Sasuke. This comment looked like it completely lost the little girl, who only stared at them, the confused look on her face growing.

"The um…usual?" She asked, completely confused now. All of a sudden, a man stepped out from the back room through the double doors that separated them from the kitchen. What was brought forth from those greasy doors was a giant. At a good six foot seven inches tall, as filled in his frame with bulk. A slightly rounded stomach showed that, although he worked hard, he ate well. When he saw who was at the counter, a smile grew on his face.

"Hey there my boys!" The man shouted excitedly, startling the new clerk, along with a few other customers. As he said this, Naruto's smile grew to three times its normal size.

"Hey there!" he shouted right back, making a few of the already uncomfortable customers angry.

"Man, it's been so long since you two were here, I was beginning to think that you weren't ever coming back." The man said excitedly as he stuck his hand out towards Naruto, who took the man's hand in his own, even though he was dwarfed by the man's size, and shook it eagerly.

"Nah, I would never stop coming here. I don't know about the bastard here, but I would die without you guys!" Naruto said.

"Well, that is good to hear, Naruto." The man returned, his smile beaming even more. "Well, I know that today is the first day of school, so why don't I give you guys your lunch on the house? How does that sound to the two of you?" The man said, looking back and forward from the two's faces.

If it was even possible, Naruto's smile grew even more at the mention of a free lunch. Sure, he never paid anyway, but still, it was sure nice of the man to do that.

"That would be the coolest thing in the world!" He yelled excitedly, before turning to the Uchiha. "Don't you think so too, Sasuke?"

"Hn" Was all he got in reply.

"Well great then. I know exactly what you two want, so don't worry, I'll have it out in a jiffy." The large man said before shuffling quickly back into the kitchen.

Five minutes, three double cheeseburgers, and five large French fries later, and Naruto and Sasuke were sitting down, enjoying their meal. Well, Naruto was at least. Sasuke ate slowly on the one large order of French fries and the one double cheeseburger that he had gotten himself, while Naruto inhaled his food like it was the last meal before his execution. Normally, Sasuke would have been repulsed by something as disgusting as the scene in front of him, but being Naruto's friend meant you got used to his odd eating habits.

"Dobe, if you eat that that fast, you'll get the hiccups, not to mention sick." Sasuke said quietly.

"Shut it teme." Naruto said, not even slowing down at all with his obsessive eating.

Ten minutes later had Sasuke staring quietly, a smug look on his face as Naruto lay his head on the table where they were eating.

"Ooooohhhh, my stoma-" He moaned before he hiccupped, interrupting his whine.

"What did I say, dobe?" Sasuke said, the smirk on his face looking like it might actually turn into a smile at any moment if he didn't stop it.

"Shut up and die teme…ooohhh, my stomach hurts so badly." He moaned out again.

"I assume that this means I will be driving." Sasuke said quietly. Even though he was in a lot of pain, Naruto still managed to lift his head enough to glare at Sasuke for the tone of his voice.

"Ugh, fine." Naruto said-well, more of moaned-before reaching into his pocket for his keys. He slid them across the table into Sasuke's waiting hands.

"Well, c'mon then, we're gonna have to leave now to make it back in time." Sasuke said, rising from his seat. Naruto tried to follow, only to collapse back into his chair.

"Ooohhh, I can't even move. Just give me some time." Naruto said, closing his eyes and laying his head back down on the table. He was surprised the next moment when he felt a pair of hands reaching under his armpits, followed by a painful shoulder lodged into his stomach.

Naruto's eyes shot open at the awkward feeling. He looked down in time to see Sasuke's back.

_Is he…carrying me? _ Was all he had time to think before he noticed they were moving. Sasuke _was_ carrying him!

"Sasuke teme, put me down damnit!" Naruto yelled, bringing attention from everyone in the restaurant to the pair. Sasuke didn't say anything, but didn't put him down either.

"What the hell?! I can walk fine you know!" He yelled. But still, it didn't seem to have any effect on the teen, who didn't even slow down. Sasuke just continued to walk towards the exit, ignoring the weird stares and laughs that they were getting from the other customers. Finally he spoke.

"I thought you said you couldn't move." He said as he reached out to open the door for the two.

"Well, this isn't making it much better!" Naruto yelled back at him. Even though he was still really embarrassed about the situation, he had stopped moving. Instead, he just stayed on Sasuke's shoulder, holding his chin in his hand, the other hanging idly over Sasuke's back. Suddenly, his eyes lit up.

_If I have to be embarrassed like this, I'd might as well drag him down with me._ Naruto thought to himself. Smiling like a lunatic, Naruto started kicking and screaming wildly, pounding on Sasuke's back as he yelled.

"BUT MOMMY, MOMMY. I DON'T WANNA GO TO SCHOOL!" Deciding that there was nothing else he could do, Sasuke just kept walking.

Suddenly, Naruto's hand brushed Sasuke's ass. Even though it was very brief, Naruto could feel Sasuke tense at the contact. Embarrassed completely now, Naruto mumbled an apology.

"Hn" was, once again, all he got in reply.

Finally, the two reached Naruto's car. Sasuke bent down to release Naruto, who scrambled off of his back.

"Geeze teme, you didn't really _have_ to do that you know." Naruto said, trying to sound angry.

"I know, but I need to entertain myself somehow." Sasuke replied as he got into the passenger seat. "And plus, you can move now." He said as Naruto sat down. Now it was Naruto's turn.

"Hn" he said, trying to look as smug as Sasuke did. The two looked each other in the eyes before Naruto burst into laughter, and Sasuke _almost_ thought about considering the possibility of smiling. This process ended with Sasuke's mouth twitching ever so slightly.

The two pulled up into the school parking lot as the first bell rang, meaning they had five minutes to get into their class before they would be tardy. They both walked to the same side of the school, because the Band hall and the Locker rooms were only about 100 ft apart. As Naruto approached his door, he threw one last look at Sasuke.

"See ya' in sixth." He said before ducking into the band hall.

"Hn, you don't even know what class sixth is, dobe." Sasuke said quietly to where Naruto wouldn't hear. Without stopping, he pushed open the next set of doors, leading him to an open walk-way which led to the locker rooms.

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Inside the Band hall, Naruto looked around, his smile big on his face. It had been all too long since he had been here. At times, the place felt more like home than well, home.

Being a drummer, Naruto automatically began walking towards the back of the room. As he walked, he looked around at the nervous freshmen as they stumbled around blindly, trying to find their lockers and their equipment. Naruto smirked slightly as he continued to walk towards his own locker.

When he was about to reach it, Naruto was interrupted by a large mass of bushy brown hair, a beaming smile, and two odd, triangular red tattoos as Inuzuka Kiba plowed into him from behind. Naruto swung around instantly, shoving Kiba off of him.

"Heh, sorry Uzumaki, that guy over there pushed me, I couldn't do anything about it." Kiba said, his beaming smile doing just that.

"Ha, my ass someone pushed you, look, there's not even anyone behind you!" Naruto said, his smile growing on his face as he pushed Kiba backwards into a single freshman.

"Hey kid, watch it." Kiba said as he straightened himself out.

"Who are you calling kid?! I'm better than you!" yelled an annoyingly high pitched, although male, voice.

Kiba, who was about to turn back to mess with Naruto again, looked back at the freshman who dared to try to back talk him. He was about to open his mouth when he saw Naruto laughing his ass off.

"Haha Kiba, looks like someone's better than you!" Naruto said in a sarcastic, mockingly high-pitched voice.

"I don't know who this guy thinks he is, but he better back off." Kiba said to Naruto, jerking a thumb in the boy's direction.

"I'm Konohamaru! I am the best drummer out of my Jr. High School!" The freshman piped up, pointing his thumb at himself.

Naruto stared at the kid for about five seconds before bursting into laughter again. Kiba started to laugh slightly too.

"Dude, piss off until you hit puberty or something, just get out of here." He said before laughing again that Konohamaru.

"I'm not going anywh-"

"I'm not kidding, piss off" Kiba interrupted.

"Konohamaru, or whatever the heck your name is, I recommend you leave before you make Kiba angry… You won't like him when he's angry." Naruto said, his smile still on his face. At this, Kiba turned around, trying desperately to look mean and intimidating while not laughing in the kid's face. Apparently it worked, because Konohamaru turned and leaved without saying another word.

When he was out of earshot, Kiba and Naruto glanced at each other, Naruto's eyebrow cocked up right before they both burst into loud, uncaring laughter. This lasted for about five minutes, until the instructor came into the hall, tapping their music stand with a pencil to get everyone's attention. When everyone in the room was quiet, the instructor, Mr. Yamamoto, looked down at his music. He stood there for a moment before, without even looking up, he spoke.

"Kiba and Naruto, separate."

The two guilty boys stared at him for a moment, and then moved to different sides of the back of the room. Finally, after a few more minutes, Mr. Yamamoto looked up to the class.

"Well everyone, let's begin."

**Ok, there we go. Hope you liked it. Please feel free to R&R, tell me you liked it, tell me you hated it and are going to hunt me down and kill me because I can't write, whatever you want. Please, PLEASE try and tell me if you think that any of the characters are OOC from how you think they act in real life. I really don't want to do that, but it might happen eventually. So...anyway, next chapter will be up in a week!**


	3. When I Know What I Want

**All right here we go. Chapter three, at your service. Enjoy.**

**Oh yeah, before I forget, thanks a lot to BelleDragon for Beta..ing this story for me. If you're writing yourself, I'd really recommend that you get someone to beta for you, because it's amazing what a fresh pair of eyes can see!**

Naruto stood by the entryway into the school, waiting for Sasuke to get out of the bathroom. The two always went home together, because they usually branched off to one another's house. Neither liked to be at their own house, Sasuke because he didn't like his family, namely his father, and Naruto because he thought his house was too quiet and empty to be any fun.

Finally Sasuke showed up from the bathroom, and the two started walking again. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Sakura appeared, only to attach herself to Sasuke's shoulder almost instantly. Sasuke tried to move out of the way in time, but the pink haired beauty was too quick for him. Naruto could have sworn he had heard a sucking noise when she had seemingly boarded him like a space shuttle to a station.

"So Sasuke-kun, how was your first day of school?" she asked, a huge smile on her face.

"Fine, I guess…" Sasuke replied.

"How about you, Naruto? How was your day?" She asked, looking past Sasuke. Naruto, who wasn't nearly as composed as his friend, seemed to bubble up with the prospect that Sakura was actually talking to him.

"My day was GGGRRRREEEAAATTT!" He said like an over-ecstatic Tony-the-Tiger. This didn't go over well with Sasuke or Sakura, as Sasuke rolled his eyes, running his hand through his hair, while Sakura shook her head and smiled.

"You're so stupid, Naruto," she said. "So what are you boys up to today now that school's out?"

"Noth-"

"We're gonna go watch a movie, you wanna come with?" Naruto yelled, drowning out Sasuke's attempt at denial of their plans.

"Sure, I don't see why not. Pick me up at around six o'clock," she said, even though she had no idea what time the movie actually started. As she spoke, the trio was approaching the parking lot, so Sakura reluctantly released Sasuke's arm, branching off to her own car.

"Ok, I'll see you then." Naruto yelled after her as he and Sasuke approached Naruto's own orange Lancer.

"Well, thanks for asking me if I wanted her to come, Naruto," Sasuke said sarcastically as he waited for Naruto to open the doors. With a click, they were opened, and Sasuke climbed in, slightly annoyed at the unwelcomed invitation.

"You know, I don't really see why you don't like her, you could do her in like, twenty minutes if you set your mind to it." Naruto said unabashedly as he climbed into his side of the car before starting her up. "That's right baby, purr for daddy," he said quietly, cooing the car as he seemed to completely ignore any reply Sasuke might give him.

Sasuke stared at Naruto for a minute before rolling his eyes at the boy's antics.

"You do this every time we get into this damn car, please stop. Odd though it may sound, you're car isn't alive…" Sasuke said, only slightly annoyed with Naruto by now.

"Ok fine, but you still haven't answered my question on why you just don't do Sakura…Like I said, you could do it in like, ten seconds flat," Naruto replied. He backed out of the parking spot, and the two took off.

"First, you said twenty minutes the first time, and also, I don't do stupid chicks," Sasuke said coldly, staring out the window.

"Oh shut up and just admit that you like men," Naruto said as they pulled up to Sasuke's ride.

"Just because I won't get women, doesn't mean that I can't, unlike you apparently," Sasuke said as the pulled to a stop.

Naruto's mouth opened and closed a couple of times as he tried to think of a proper come back. Finally, he resolved to just cross his arms and pout as Sasuke climbed out of the car. The pout soon turned to a look of jealousy that he would never let Sasuke see as he watched Sasuke unlock his helmet. This was the reason why Naruto drove him to school almost every day.

Konoha High School didn't allow motorcycles.

As he approached the bike, his eyes just raked over the beauty. The bike was black as night, with nothing more than a few, deep red highlights on different parts, that did nothing to really brighten its overall appearance. One could tell that this baby was custom by the tiny, yet painfully obvious Uchiha symbols that decorated both sides of the gas tank. Nothing more than a single, small symbol on each side was enough to announce who this bike belonged to. As he mounted it, Sasuke reached into his pockets for his keys. Putting them into the ignition and starting the cycle up, he sat there for a moment, just looking at the bike, seemingly lost in another world.

"Oi! And you said that _I _loved my car too much!" Naruto yelled out the passenger window. This comment seemed to knock Sasuke out of his reverie, because he seemed to 'wake up,' looking around with a confused expression. Naruto started to laugh again.

"C'mon, let's go damnit!" he yelled before pulling away.

Sasuke watched him for a minute before sliding his helmet on, and kicking the bike into gear. With a roar, he gunned it, trying to catch up to Naruto. Naruto, seeing this in his mirror, gunned his engine as well, trying desperately to stay ahead of that speed demon of a bike. Unfortunately though, it wasn't long before Sasuke caught up, and passed Naruto, who himself was doing almost eighty. Two blocks later, Naruto watched as Sasuke slid into a dramatic sideways stop, facing Naruto now. At this, Naruto rolled his eyes, for someone that tried to act so cool and collected all the time, Sasuke sure as hell was cocky.

Naruto pulled up next to Sasuke, rolling down his window as he saw Sasuke slide his helmet off.

"So, how'd my dust taste back there, dobe?" Sasuke asked, his expression not changing at all.

"Hardy-frickin har you bastard," Naruto said, once again rolling his eyes. "So anyway, how we gonna do this?" he asked.

"Well, I sure as hell don't wanna go home, so I'll just stay with you till the movie tonight." Sasuke said.

"Ok, thanks for asking if it was alright with me and everything." Naruto said.

"I don't care if it's alright with you, it's what I'm gonna do," Sasuke replied, cocking an eyebrow in challenge.

"Hn, you really are a bastard," Naruto said as Sasuke slid his helmet back on, and the two drove the last couple blocks to Naruto's apartment complex.

The complex was simple enough, each building combining to form an angular 'U' shape around a central courtyard. It looked alright, and it was definitely cheap enough for Naruto's budget. As the door to his apartment opened to reveal a huge pile of junk, Sasuke had to hold his breath for a minute, trying to ignore the smell. Everything from ramen cups to clothes, chop sticks to magazines, anything you could possibly think of was somewhere on that floor. Looking at the sight, Sasuke paused.

"Wow dobe." hesaid, astonished.

"I know, I know. I just couldn't get around to actually cleaning up everything," Naruto replied.

"What do you mean? What the heck could you have been doing that caused _this_ to happen?"

"Well, if you had actually _been _here over the summer, you might have known, but since you weren't, I see no reason to tell you about my amazing adventures," Naruto said.

"Amazing…adventures?"

"Yes, amazing adventures."

"Somehow I doubt that, and I think that you were just too lazy to actually do anything productive over the summer, like clean your house," Sasuke said as he finally moved into the room. He shoved piles of…stuff out of the way with his feet on his way to Naruto's bedroom. As he moved, he began to undo his school uniform. The black tie was undone, soon followed by the white button down shirt, revealing a simple, black t-shirt underneath.

"Well, I'm gonna go take a shower. Do you still have the stockpile of clothes that I had over here last year?" he called back to Naruto, who was moving into the kitchen to grab some ramen as a snack.

"Yeah, they should be in one of the drawer sets in my room. I think," he called back as he popped the instant ramen into the microwave.

"Um, I really don't want to have to dig through the stuff in here," Sasuke called out. Naruto, who had been staring and drooling at the cup of ramen in the microwave, ran as fast as he could back to the room. Kicking piles out of his way, he made it to the set of drawers where he had last seen Sasuke's little stash of clothes from when he would stay for a couple nights at a time. Digging through the drawers, he found them still in the plastic bag they were originally stowed in (Sasuke had been his friend for years, so he knew how Naruto was.)

"Aha, let's hope these still fit," Sasuke said as he grabbed the bag from Naruto, who headed back to the kitchen to eat. Sasuke turned back towards the bathroom, set on taking a shower.

Fifteen minutes later found Sasuke out of the bathroom, in the kitchen, waiting for Naruto to finish up in the shower. Unlike Sasuke, who thought of showers as quick ways to wash yourself, Naruto thought of them as a time to relax by yourself, or some bullshit like that. So, it wasn't for a long while that Naruto finally walked out of the bathroom, followed by a wall of steam. The wall of steam hit Sasuke like a real wall; the heat was just downright oppressive.

"Holy hell, did you have fun in there, dobe?" Sasuke asked as he backed up, fanning the steam away with his hands.

"Heck yes I did," Naruto replied, a giant smile on his face.

"Well anyway, hurry up and get dressed, I want to get something to eat before we go to the movie," Sasuke said as Naruto moved to his bedroom, but not before grabbing his school uniform. He reached for the clip on tie, button up shirt, and black pants, and brought them into the room with him, closing the door. If there was one thing that Naruto strove to keep clean, it was his school uniform; God knows he had gotten in enough trouble for it without it being dirty. In a few minutes, he was out, wearing a pair of faded, low riding jeans that fit him perfectly, and a bright orange shirt with a dark red swirl on the stomach.

"Um…wow, that's really bright. When did you get that shirt?" Sasuke asked, shielding his eyes as though the shirt was the sun.

"I got it a couple weeks ago. What are you doing with your hand?"

"I'm shielding my eyes. Your shirt is blinding!" Sasuke said, backing away from the boy. Naruto looked like he had just heard that his puppy had been killed. He stared at Sasuke wide-eyed, bottom lip quivering.

"What? Why do you look like you're about to cry?" Sasuke said, staring at him. Suddenly Naruto blinked, smiling again.

"Meh, just kidding. I almost got you with it though, didn't I teme?" He asked.

"C'mon, we've gotta get going if you want to get some food before the movie."

With that, he was out the door, heading to his car, Sasuke following him. They got in and headed to the usual burger place where they met their friend once again, who, although he made them pay for their food, still gave them a discount. After eating, the two departed once again. They were almost at Sakura's house to pick her up, when Sasuke suddenly smacked his forehead. Naruto looked at him, confused.

"What?" He asked.

"I forgot to mention that I left my phone at the house this morning on my way to school, can we go and pick it up real quick?"

"Why? It's not like anyone's going to call you or anything," Naruto said, even though he was starting to turn around.

"And how would you know that?" Sasuke said, cocking an eyebrow in challenge.

"Because I stalk you, duh," Naruto said, laughing a bit.

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It was ten minutes later that Naruto pulled up to Sasuke's house, and watched as he jumped out of the passenger seat to run inside.

The Uchiha estate was…impressive, for lack of a better term. The large, multi-story house was on two acres of neatly groomed land. Sasuke's room was on the second floor of the behemoth, where _exactly_ on the second floor, Naruto had no idea, though they were friends, they almost never hung out at the Uchiha's residence, they almost always either went to Naruto's apartment, or to somewhere else all together. Naruto didn't really know exactly where the Uchiha got their fortune from, he had just heard the rumors that everyone had, which involved the fact that Uchiha Fugaku, a retired army veteran, had started a business once he had retired from the army. This business had blasted off from when it had started, becoming one of the leading corporations in its field, which was the invention, production and selling of Law Enforcement and Military Hardware. Although he was aging at 52, Uchiha Fugaku was still a _very_ intimidating man, especially to those who haven't seen him before. His size wasn't the only contributing aspect to this intimidation factor. Even though he was larger than most men, Fugaku's main intimidator came from his demeanor. To sum it up in Naruto's terms, the guy looked like he killed baby puppies in his spare time, the bigger the eyes, the better.

As Sasuke headed to his room, Naruto couldn't help but notice the design on the back of his plain white shirt he had donned. It was a giant logo that Naruto knew represented the Uchiha family, but he didn't know what it was. He had heard it described as a Pokѐball with a penis, but he thought that was too weird to imagine. Besides that, Sasuke wore a simple, dark denim jean that, like Naruto's, hung low and loose on his waste, dropping loosely around his legs.

It was a couple minutes later that Sasuke came walking out of his house again. When he got in the car, Naruto looked at him,

"Well, what the heck took so long, teme?"

"What do you mean? I was like, three minutes," Sasuke said, giving Naruto a confused look.

"Well, that was three minutes too long," Naruto said.

"Shut up, dobe."

With that, the two left, heading over to Sakura's house. When they got there, Naruto pulled into the driveway, leaving the car in idle before getting out. He turned to Sasuke again.

"You comin'?" He asked.

"No, I don't want to be mauled on sight," he replied sarcastically.

Naruto approached the door, running a hand through his golden spikes, trying to make them more presentable for his love. His hand rose to the doorbell, when all of a sudden, he heard and saw the doorknob being turned. Quickly, he put his hand back at his side, right before the door was thrown open and a loud, obnoxious pink haired Sakura screamed.

"Sasuke-ku-aw, damnit. Hi Naruto," She said. This seemed to kill Naruto's hopes and dreams, and he looked down at his feet.

"Wow, thanks for the kind greeting, Sakura-chan," said, sounding really depressed.

"Aw, shut up and come inside. I have to grab some last minute things, and then we can go, ok?" Sakura asked.

Naruto's ears perked up at this, and he quickly followed her inside the house. He stood in the entryway as Sakura ran around, grabbing the last things that she needed for the movie. Finally, she was finished, and the two got to Naruto's car. Naruto ran ahead of Sakura, opening her door for her as she approached. She rolled her eyes at him, but still smiled at the kind gesture. When she got in, Naruto closed the door, and ran around to his side of the car. He sat down just as Sakura was mid sentence.

"-then I took a shower, and then I decided to start getting ready for you to come pick me up. What did _you_ do Sasuke-kun?" she asked over-enthusiastically. Sasuke didn't answer her, just continued to stare straight ahead. Naruto laughed slightly at his best friend's misfortune, before backing out of the driveway, and heading in the direction of the theatre.

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The trio made it to the theatre 30 minutes early, plenty of time to do whatever they needed to do to get ready for it. This was when the problem appeared. They actually had _no_ idea what movie they were going to see. It seemed that Naruto hadn't planned that far ahead when he had originally proposed the idea to Sasuke. The three were about to start arguing when they heard a voice that Naruto instantly recognized.

"Hey Naruto!" yelled Kiba as he approached them. Tagging along behind him were Hinata, Shino, Shikamaru, Chouji, and Ino. Ino, like Sakura, had a tendency to latch on to Sasuke every time she saw him, like now. Within three seconds, there she was, next to Sakura, who was glaring daggers at her.

"Hi Sasuke-kun. I didn't know you'd be here tonight!" she said excitedly. She stared up into Sasuke's eyes, while he completely ignored her. Naruto and Kiba, on the other hand, hugged each other for their greeting, each seeming to try to squeeze the life out of the other. After a few minutes of spontaneous greetings and talking, the group decided to watch one of the new hacker-slasher-not-worth-your-money-piece-of-crap-movie that they always ended up watching. So they set out to buy the necessary popcorn and drinks for everyone, and then they all went into the theatre.

The movie was uneventful. The most memorable thing (for Naruto at least) was how Ino and Sakura kept trying to kiss Sasuke, who would shove his hand in their face, and push them away. This pretty much made Naruto's night, and started to pay more attention to the three of them than to the actual movie.

Finally, after two painstaking hours, the group left the theatre, promising to see each other tomorrow at school as they went their different ways. Naruto and Sasuke dropped Sakura off, and headed over to Naruto's apartment, where they had unofficially decided to stay for the night. When they got there, Naruto decided that he needed to shove four more cups of instant ramen down his throat before going to sleep. So, with Sasuke on the couch, and Naruto in his room, the two finally drifted off.


	4. And My Want Will Be Considered Tonight

**Alright, I'm back. Here' chapter 4 for you guys. This is the first chapter that I'm going to have music posted for, and they are as follows (in the playing order):**

**Three Days Grace- Animal I have Become-.com/watch?v=jbHn1Pgj6Zk**

**Disturbed-This Moment-.com/watch?v=2NXt4e5ydac**

**Also, thanks to BelleDragon (again) for the beta**

**So, look for the little symbols (they'll be pretty obvious), and R&R and tell me if you like this whole idea. Anyway, enjoy:**

**______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________**

It was cold.

It was _really_ cold.

Naruto walked slowly towards the school building with his hands in his pockets. The light jacket that he was wearing wasn't nearly enough to block out the frigid cold air. He hadn't had enough money to get a heavier one, and his next Government check wasn't due for a couple more days, so, in short, he was screwed. He wrapped his arms around himself, even as his hands were in his pockets, making him look rather weird.

_Damn weather. I thought this place was the Fire Country. I don't see anything resembling fire here…damn…it's fuckin freezing._ He continued to walk towards the building, determined to get into the blasting furnace of his first class room. Suddenly, a heavy jacket was placed on his shoulders. Naruto's first instinct wasn't to see who it was, but to quickly remove his hands from his pockets, and pull the heavier jacket towards his body. When he was finally comfortable, he turned to see none other than Sasuke walking next to him, wearing nothing but his school uniform, which happened to be short sleeved.

"Man, how the hell do you not get cold?" Naruto asked, hugging the jacket even closer to himself. Sasuke was now next to him, and the two approached the front doors to the school.

"It's not even that cold." Sasuke replied. "Oh and, you're welcome, dobe." He finished.

Naruto mumbled something that might actually be considered thanks before the two finally reached the doors. When they got inside, the hot air from the fully functioning heating system…didn't come.

"What the fuck happened?" Naruto asked, shocked at the lack of heat. This outburst seemed to be enough to draw the likes of Shikamaru out of the woodworks, as he came out of the crowd, heading towards the pair. "What the fuck happened to the heat?!" Naruto practically yelled, earning more than a few disapproving glances from nearby students.

"Oi, not so loud, Naruto." Shikamaru said, covering his ears for a second. "But, the heater broke last night. They won't be able to fix it until today after school. What a drag."

"You said it! How am I supposed to survive without beautiful _heat_?" Naruto whined.

"You could start by getting over it. That might help, dobe." Sasuke remarked. This was rewarded with an ever-so-dignified tongue stuck out in his direction. Naruto was about to say something smart back when-

"Hey guys!" Everyone looked to the source of the voice to see a little bubbling bundle of pink colored joy heading towards them. Naruto nearly jumped up out of excitement of seeing his long lost love, and stepped in her path to give her a great big hug…which she promptly sidestepped, dodging him completely as she moved to stand next to _her_ long lost love, Sasuke.

"Hi Sasuke-kun, hi Shikamaru-kun…hi Naruto" She said with a last, passing glance at Naruto, who looked like someone had just killed his puppy.

"You know Sakura-chan; you don't have to say my name like it's a disease." Naruto said.

"Oh shut up, Naruto. You know I love you." She said. At a time like this, that was the _wrong _thing to say. Sakura's eyes widened at horror at what she had done as the blonde in front of her seemed to almost explode with joy at the compliment.

"You do?! Really?!" He shouted, drawing a lot of awkward looks from nearby students.

"No, you see what I meant was-"

"Oh my GOD! Sakura-chan loves me!" Naruto shouted, taking off in a random direction to tell all of the zero people who cared about Sakura's confession of love.

"Well, there he goes…how troublesome." Shikamaru said.

"You said it." Sasuke agreed. Sakura continued to stare at the crowd, waiting for Naruto to pop out of nowhere. Suddenly, she turned around quickly to Sasuke and Shikamaru.

"Oh, I almost forgot to mention to you guys. As you know, this Saturday is Halloween, and I am having a party to celebrate it that night. If you want to, you guys can show up." Sakura said, barely masking her pleading tone as she finished the sentence.

"Well, I don't have anything else to do, so I guess I'll go." Shikamaru said.

"Well, as soon as Naruto finds out, I'm going to be dragged with him, so you should expect to see us there." Sasuke said.

"Awesome, just come to my house whenever it gets dark. That should leave you plenty of time to get ready." Sakura said, bubbling with joy at the acceptance.

"Well, I need to go tell more people. I'll see you guys around." She said as she turned to disappear in the crowd. Sasuke and Shikamaru were left standing there, not saying anything to anyone, and they didn't seem to have a problem with it, either. It wasn't until Naruto came back from his adventure that a word was spoken. And that word was more of a whine from the blonde.

"Where'd my beautiful Sakura-chan go?" He said, looking around like a lost puppy. Sasuke shook his head, before punching Naruto in the arm, hard. This seemed to knock the girlyness out of Naruto, who turned to swing back, missing completely as Sasuke stepped away.

"Ow, what the fuck man?" Naruto whined, rubbing the sore spot on his arm.

"Well dobe, you need to calm down and stop acting like a crack baby." Sasuke said coolly. "Anyway, Sakura's having a Halloween party on Saturday, I expect that you want to go, right?" He asked. Once again, the mere mention of Sakura's name seemed to grant Naruto's every desire, as he smiled brightly.

"Of _course_ I want to go." Naruto replied, he was about to say more, but the trio was interrupted by the first period bell. With a wave, Shikamaru left the two, being that his first class wasn't near theirs.

"Since you're so far up in the sky, dobe, I think it's best for me to remind you that we have that demonstration at the MA center tonight, so you better be there. I'm not gonna stand there by myself."

"I know, I know. Don't forget to give him the CD, though."

"I will as long as you aren't late."

"Yeah yeah yeah, I'm not gonna be late, I promise."

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It was officially 5:30, and Naruto was officially late. Even though Sasuke had _told_ him that they had the demonstration at the MA center, he had forgotten. Now, he was running frantically around his apartment, looking for his pads. Then, as though his day couldn't get any more hectic, the phone rang.

"God Damnit!" Naruto yelled, reaching for the phone before looking at who it was. "What do you want?" He asked, just barely hiding the anger in his voice.

"They're under your bed, dobe." A voice he recognized as Sasuke's spoke to him.

"What? What the hell are you talking about, teme?" Naruto said as he started to head in the general direction of his room. When he got there, he reached under his bed to find the gym bag that held his pads. He made a silent 'Oh' sound, hoping that Sasuke hadn't heard him, and turned to head out the door.

"You can thank me later, dobe." Sasuke said before he hung up. Naruto cursed him with all his might, putting his phone in his pocket, and closing the door.

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It was now 5:45, and Naruto was officially _really_ late. As he floored it into the parking lot, he narrowly avoided an old woman in a minivan who was leaving the grocery store. He pulled into a parking spot, turned off his car, and grabbed his bag as he headed towards a small building with a large sign over it that read "The Martial Arts Center". This was almost like Naruto's 'home away from home'. He couldn't help but think back on all the years that he and Sasuke had been going there as he ran full sprint towards the glass door. As he barged into the room, all eyes were instantly dragged towards him. The instructor, Mr. Tanaka, who was in the middle of a small speech to the gathering of people he had around him, stopped mid sentence to stare at Naruto, before breaking into a grin.

"Ladies and Gentlemen. I present to you, Uzumaki Naruto. He and Uchiha Sasuke are two of my oldest students. I have been much honored to teach them both from a young age. Once again, I thank you for considering 'The Martial Arts Center' for you and your childrens' martial arts education. Now, the reason I had Naruto and Sasuke here tonight is not only to introduce them to you, but also, to allow them to demonstrate to you the result of years of training."

By this time, Naruto had found a very smug looking Sasuke. With a middle-finger when nobody was looking, Naruto ducked into a restroom to put on his pads. He came out a few minutes later to find Sasuke standing in the middle of the mat, waiting for him. With a silent curse, he jogged to his place on the mat. A place he had stood so many times before. Tanaka-sensei once more stepped into the middle of the floor as the two boys began to stretch.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, my two students here will be sparring. They will be using the standard rules for a match such as this. Every time a hit is made on the opponent's torso in the dot that you see on their pads, a point is scored. This match, because of our obvious time constraints, will only be going to three points. Any questions?" He gave everyone a few seconds to speak up. "No? Ok, then let me start the music, and these two will begin." He said as he walked back behind the desk by the front door. As he ducked behind the counter to mess with the sound system, Naruto turned to Sasuke.

"You gave him the CD, right?" He asked, worried.

"No, he's back there messing with the sound system for no reason whatsoever." Sasuke returned, his all-too-smug smile back on his face. Naruto stuck his tongue out at him, a mumbled 'teme' to follow it.

"I don't even know why I hang out with you." He said. Sasuke was about to reply, when the music started up. (†) The pounding bass beat of the songblared out of the speakers. Naruto took a moment to close his eyes, taking in the sounds. He also couldn't help but to air drum along with the music. When he opened his eyes, he saw Sasuke standing there, arms crossed, like he waiting for someone at an airport. Tanaka-sensei took his usual place in between the two boys. With a look at each of them, he raised his hand in the air. The bass heavy in the air, the two boys took their starting stances. When they were both ready, Tanaka threw his hand down.

"Begin!"

Naruto looked at Sasuke, who didn't move. He only stood there, smiling confidently. Angry now, Naruto stepped towards him, throwing a jab with his right hand at Sasuke's face. With a swipe of his hand, Sasuke knocked the offending hand out of the way, and followed through with his own right handed jab towards Naruto's chest. His hand was almost a blur as it sped right past Naruto's block, hitting him square in the chest.

"Point, Uchiha!" Tanaka-sensei yelled. The audience applauded the scene.

"You're going to have to move faster than that, dobe." Sasuke said as the two got back into their starting positions. With a slight growl in the back of his throat, Naruto lunged once again. He jabbed with his right hand again, and Sasuke once again knocked it out of the way with little effort. This time though, Naruto followed through. As Sasuke's fist flew towards his face, Naruto slapped it down with his left hand. He then brought up his right hand again, which had been slapped to the side. Naruto shifted his weight forward, bending his right arm at the elbow, and launching it towards Sasuke's face, with many gasps from the watching crowd. Sasuke ducked. The elbow flew over his head, but there was something he had missed. Next thing he knew, Naruto's right knee was flying towards his face. Reacting purely on instinct, Sasuke launched his upper body backwards, once again narrowly avoiding the intense pain of Naruto's knee in his face. Unluckily for him, though, this movement left him wide open, giving Naruto ample time to throw an open handed strike right into Sasuke's chest.

"Point, Uzumaki!" Tanaka-sensei yelled. Once again, polite clapping was heard as Sasuke and Naruto got back into their starting positions.

Sasuke wasn't smiling anymore. But Naruto was.

As soon as they started, he shifted his weight to his left, launching a horizontal kick with his right leg at Naruto's left thigh. Naruto swung his own weight around, bringing his own right shin up to block the kick. As soon as his foot bounced off, Sasuke swung his weight back around the other side, this time low, sweeping Naruto's legs out from under him. Naruto landed on his back on the mat hard, knocking the wind out of him. Sasuke straightened up, quickly bringing his right leg vertical to smash it down on Naruto's prone body. Naruto, seeing this, quickly brought his arms up over his chest in an 'X' shape. It worked, as Sasuke's foot, instead of nailing Naruto in the chest, hit him in the arms, denying him the point.

Naruto turned his wrists, grabbing Sasuke's foot, keeping it from moving away. Using his right leg to push off, he swung his weight around, kicking Sasuke's base foot with his own left leg, knocking Sasuke on the ground. He then pushed off the mat with his right leg, bringing it up and crashing down on Sasuke's chest.

"Point Uzumaki!"

The two got up again, ready to continue. If Naruto didn't know any better, he was almost at the point where he'd say that Sasuke looked…frustrated. The mere idea of this made Naruto himself smile. Just before they started moving again, a different song started. (†)

So it began again, as Naruto once again started the fight off. He stepped up with his left foot, swinging his right leg around in a smooth roundhouse kick. But this time, instead of Sasuke ducking, like Naruto had planned, the raven instead, blocked the leg with his right hand. Grabbing the foot, he pushed it as hard as he could, launching Naruto, arms flailing, onto the mat. Before he had time to react, Naruto found himself pinned to the mat by Sasuke's foot in his chest.

"Point Uchiha!" It was tied.

Naruto rose to much applause from the audience, getting back into his spot. Sasuke was almost smiling now that he had caught up, and Naruto was determined to make the bastard pay. When Tanaka-sensei's hand went down, signaling the start, Naruto jumped. He flew at Sasuke with his fist out in front of him, determined to punch the bastard in the face. Sasuke, of course, easily dodged this move, moving his head and upper body to his left. Grabbing the passing fist with his right hand, Sasuke reached under Naruto's armpit with his left and used Naruto's own momentum to hoist the blonde up and over, bringing him crashing down on his back. Naruto, completely winded, could only watch as Sasuke spun around, planting a knee in his chest, his fist an inch away from his face.

"Point and match, Uchiha!"

The audience burst into loud cheers and applause as Naruto glared cross eyed at the fist. He lashed out with his mouth, snapping at the knuckles, and he managed to knick one before Sasuke brought his hand away.

"Ow Dobe, don't be a sore loser" Sasuke said, a smirk on his face.

"Fuckin' Temebastardassholeshithead." Naruto mumbled looking down to the side. When he finally got the courage to look back up at his rival and friend, he saw Sasuke's hand, reached out to help him up. He couldn't help but smile slightly, though he desperately tried not to, as he grabbed the hand, and hauled himself up. The two of them turned to the crowd, Sasuke giving a polite bow, and Naruto just standing there, scratching the back of his head, a huge grin on his face. That was until Sasuke grabbed the back of his neck, and forced him down as well, with a few laughs from the audience. Finally, Mr. Tanaka walked back out to the middle of the mat, politely bowing to the crowd as well.

"Ladies and Gentlemen, once again, I thank you for coming tonight, and I hope that you will consider 'The Martial Arts Center' for your family's martial education. Please take a flyer on your way outside, but please, before you do, join me in giving these fine young men one more round of applause." He said, before clapping loudly, along with everyone else in the room. Sasuke stood calmly watching the crowd, while Naruto desperately tried to find something to look at that _wasn't_ the smiling faces of the crowd.

It seemed like ages before Naruto was able to fight his way to the restroom to change, and finally battle his way out of the center. By the time he got out, he hand was falling off from all the handshakes, and his ears were hurting from all the questions and compliments. When he finally got out to his car, Naruto was surprised to find Sasuke leaning against it, fully changed, holding his helmet in his hand, his bag over his shoulder.

"How'd you…?" Naruto asked.

"Do you mind if I stay over tonight?" Sasuke suddenly asked. "My father was comparing me to Itachi again today, and I don't really want to go home right now."

"No, I don't care." Naruto said, slightly confused. For a second there, Sasuke sounded almost…nice. Just the mere thought that Sasuke was actually being nice almost made Naruto cringe. It just wasn't natural. Shaking his head as Sasuke walked away, Naruto got into his car.

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Naruto unlocked the door, pushing it open as he turned on the lights. He casually threw his bag in a random direction as he walked into the apartment, before kicking his shoes off as well. He turned to Sasuke, who was in the process of neatly setting his own stuff on the floor in the entryway.

"So, whatcha wanna do now?" He asked.

"I don't know. I just kinda wanna sleep." Sasuke said. Ok, now Naruto was _really _confused. He could have sworn Sasuke just sounded like he was depressed. The mere fact that Sasuke was so depressed that he could actually show it in his voice, made Naruto worry. Not sure what else to do, Naruto rubbed the back of his head.

"Umm, ok then. But I kinda spilled shit all over the couch, you'll have to either share the bed with me, or sleep on the floor. That is, unless you like the smell of Ramen…" He said, smiling as he tried to lighten the mood. But, without saying anything, Sasuke just headed towards Naruto's room. Peeling off his shirt, Naruto saw the pale skin of his back, absolutely untarnished; it almost seemed to…glow, in the light from the lamps. Naruto couldn't help but stare; it was just one of the most mesmerizing things he had ever seen. To think that, with all the times that he'd seen Sasuke shirtless, he'd never noticed until now that Sasuke was so pale, was just another sign of how slow Naruto could really be.

He continued to watch as Sasuke found the bag with his clothes, and pulled out a clean white shirt. For some reason, he just couldn't take his eyes off of the pale skin of his friend. Sasuke, being Sasuke, noticed Naruto staring at him. After pulling on the shirt, he turned around to face the dobe.

"Something wrong?" He asked, slightly annoyed.

_What the hell is with this guy? _Naruto thought to himself. _One minute he's all emo-I'm-gonna-die, and the next he's back to his cocky self again._ He really had no idea what was going on with his friend.

"Yeah, there is actually." Naruto said. The Uchiha's eyebrow slowly rose towards his hair line at this comment.

"What the hell is wrong with you right now? One minute you look like you're going to launch yourself off of a nearby cliff, and the next, your back to normal." He continued, more determined now.

"What's wrong with me has nothing to do with you." Sasuke returned, before turning around and going into Naruto's room.

_I can't believe this. He has to balls to say that, and then go to my room! _Naruto thought to himself. With nothing else to do, he shook his head slowly, and followed the black haired boy. When he got to his room, Naruto saw Sasuke already asleep (though probably faking). He had already taken off his jeans, and they were folded neatly on the ground near the bed. Sighing to himself, Naruto walked to the other side of the bed. Stripping his own jeans off, he pulled up the corner of the blankets and let himself in. With one last look at his best friend, as though he expected him to erupt into flames or something, Naruto reached over, turned out the light, and closed his eyes.

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**So, you like? Anyway, R&R please, I like to know that someone is reading this story at all!**


	5. Agh, Agh

**Alright, here we go again. Thanks for reading so far, hope you're enjoying. If you're not...well TOO BAD! ;) If you don't like something, don't be scared to tell me, I'm all ears.**

**Anyway, enjoy!**

Sasuke pulled up to the house, killing the engine on his bike. Peeling off his helmet, he headed through the large garden, past the Sakura trees which lay dormant, waiting for their time to bloom. He almost found it ironic that the girl he knew had a crush on him shared the same name as his mother's favorite trees. He could almost imagine what his mother would say if he ever started dating her.

He continued walking along the path, through the trees, past the single fountain that was almost never on, except when they had company, past the myriad of other plants, all of them finely sculpted. Finally, he reached the front door, guarded on either side by two Sakura trees. It was really a sight to see when they were in bloom. But now, it all just looked dead.

Opening the door, Sasuke took off his shoes, neatly setting them down in the entryway. As he set them down, he started. Usually there were several other pairs of shoes, his mother, father, and any number of servants that were working at any time but this time, something seemed different. There was one more pair of shoes that he didn't recognize. Confused, Sasuke headed towards the main family room (they had three). Past the number of closets, the kitchen, left before the stairwell, and another left, two rights, one more left, and straight through the double doors. But, before he could reach the doors, Sasuke heard it. The single voice that he hadn't heard in over a year.

"-ut Father, we discussed this when I first enlisted. You yourself were a military man. I can't see why you would be so disappointed in me for following in your footsteps. Look where those steps got you in the first place."

_That voice…_ Sasuke hadn't heard that voice in so long.

"But you are my son, my best son, and I do not think that the military is good enou-"

"Father, I will not have you speak of Sasuke like he's not standing right outside this room."

Sasuke froze. He didn't know what to do. _How does he guess these things? _Hethought, opening the door and stepping into the room. Upon entering, he glanced around, seeing his father, Uchiha Fugaku, who seemed to be glaring at him, and his brother, Itachi, who seemed like he was happy as ever to see his little brother. Hell, maybe he was.

"Why, hello there Sasuke. It's been a while, hasn't it?" Itachi asked, turning away from his father. At this, Fugaku rose from his seat, turning to leave the room. Sasuke watched him as he approached, and noticed that the man did not seem to even look at him. Without a word, Fugaku opened the double doors, and stepped out. When the doors closed, the atmosphere seemed to immediately soften. The brothers were not forced to be on their guard at all times like they seemed to be when their father was in the room.

Itachi rose, waving Sasuke over to him. When he was in reach, Itachi grabbed him, bringing him into a hug. Sasuke didn't know what to do. He wasn't used to this kind of affection, except from the annoying girls at school, and even then, his first reflex was to scrape them off like a piece of gum from one's shoe. So instead, he just stood there, not moving, just staring at a random corner of the room. When he seemed to be finished, Itachi pulled back, staring Sasuke in the eyes.

"Don't even think of worrying about what you heard. You know father doesn't mean what he says half the time," he said, a reassuring smile on his face.

"Yeah, but with that logic, that means that he _does_ mean what he says the other half of the time." Sasuke replied.

"Ah, getting clever, aren't we?"

"You should have heard him when you were gone. It seemed that everything that I did, no matter what it was, was always being compared to you, and it almost always seemed that I failed at it."

"Don't you worry about that. I myself had to deal with that kind of strain. You were too young to notice it, but he did the same emotional slave driving to me that he is doing to you. It's his way of trying to make you better than you think you can be."

"That doesn't even make sense. How could you be compared to your older brother, when you never even had one?"

"Oh Lord no, I wasn't lucky enough to just be compared to a brother. Father always compared me to himself, when he was my age. It seemed that everything I did wasn't exactly like he himself had done it, and therefore, it wasn't good enough either. You should've heard some of the stuff he said."

At this, Sasuke didn't really have anything to say. If Itachi was telling the truth, then that meant that he really had no reason to be angry at his father, because he was just doing his own version of child rearing.

"Hm, seems I've stumped you there. Look, just keep this in mind. When he's telling you that you aren't good enough at something, then take it as it is. Take what he's said, and try to prove him wrong. Try to show him that you can be and are better than me. That will make you successful, and our father happy." Itachi said to a still unconvinced Sasuke.

"Please, Sasuke, trust me on this one. I know that it sucks to be looked down on at all times by your father, but, it's the best for you. Now, c'mon, I haven't had time to say hello to mother yet." He said. With his first two fingers, Itachi poked Sasuke in the middle of the forehead, just like he had done all the time when they were younger. Sasuke batted the fingers away, annoyed, but still continued to follow his brother.

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The two reached the kitchen where Mikoto, their mother, was busy making dinner for the evening with the help of several of the family's servants. When she saw them enter, she dropped what she was doing, rushing to envelope her son in a smothering hug. When she finally released him, tears in her eyes, as she ushered him to a nearby stool, she erupted into a rant, asking dozens of questions, seemingly at once, as Itachi tried desperately to keep up.

Seeing that he wasn't needed, Sasuke turned to leave.

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Itachi pushed open the door without even knocking. Barely even twitching at the sudden intrusion, Sasuke looked up from the book he was reading.

"Yeah, c'mon in." He said sarcastically.

"Why thank you for the offer." Itachi returned. Closing the door behind him, he stepped over towards the bed.

"You know, you didn't have to drop off the face of the planet when mother and I started talking."

"Yeah well, you didn't seem to need me there."

"You know, you could at least _try_ to hide the jealousy in your voice."

"I'm not jealous."

"Oh yeah, and I'm black."

At this, Sasuke just glared at him.

The two continued in silence as Itachi walked over to one of the walls. "Quite a collection you've gotten here." He said. Covering the entire wall, on a variety of different stands, with some just hanging by string, was a collection of blades. Everything from small throwing knives to full sized Katanas were on display.

Sasuke didn't answer.

Deciding that changing the subject wasn't going to work, Itachi turned to face his younger brother. "Look, you're going to need to understand our relationship." He said, almost sounding angry. "We are more than just brothers, you and I. I know that you don't realize it yet, but to you, I am the ultimate obstacle. I am the final barrier that you must surpass in order to succeed. Do you want father to like you more than me?"

Sasuke didn't know what to say.

"You do, and you know it. If you want father to like you more than me, then you need to beat me. Become my equal, surpass me in everything that we do, and our father will have no choice but to look to you, he will have no choice but to acknowledge how good you are. But, until that time comes, until you can stand there and say 'I am better than Itachi,' you will always be in my shadow, no matter how much you hate to admit it, that is the way things work in a family such as ours. Think about that for a while." Itachi said. With that, he stood up and left the room.

Slightly dumbfounded, Sasuke stared at the closed door. After a few moments, he rolled over onto his side.

_I don't care about his acknowledgement_ he thought to himself, even though he knew he was lying.

**Alright, there we go. You like? Feel free to review if you do.**

**The next chapter, chapter 6, will be up next Friday. Hope to see you then!**


	6. Considered Tonight

**Alright, here we go...again. Chapter 6-The Party. **

**Once again, thanks to BelleDragon for being ever so kind as to beta this for me. So...read and review! Thanks**

Sasuke simply stood and watched as Naruto launched himself all over his apartment. Clothes flew everywhere, along with some other things that Sasuke wasn't too sure he wanted to discover the identity of.

"I told you days ago about this party. Then I called you earlier today to _remind_ you about this party, and yet still, here you are, late and confused as ever," he said, shaking his head.

"You know, I could really do with you shutting up right about now." Was all he got in reply.

With a sigh, Sasuke resumed his post, leaned up against the hallway, dressed and waiting to go. Deciding that the last thing that he wanted to do was wear any kind of costume, Sasuke stood simply in his jeans, with a white striped button down shirt, buttoned halfway up, with the sleeves rolled up past his elbows. Underneath, he wore a plain white undershirt, with white tennis shoes covered partially by his pants. Naruto, on the other hand, was going with what could be called the all-too-cliché devil look. A black shirt with a dark red swirl on it flowed down to dark denim jeans, which barely covered the solid black shoes. To top it all off, a glimpse up to his head would reveal the fake devil horns poking out of the sea of blonde hair. But, what really caught Sasuke off guard when he first saw it…was the tail. Yes, that's right, Naruto had a tail. Bright red and _sparkly_, it was possibly the single gayest accessory Sasuke had seen a straight male wear…ever. But, being the sadistic bastard that he was, Sasuke decided not to say anything, let someone laugh at him at the party.

What he was looking for now was almost the last straw for Sasuke. For the past ten minutes, Naruto had been running around the house, desperately trying to find his plastic pitchfork, which he had just bought earlier that day. What he didn't know was that, while he had been changing, Sasuke disposed of the stupid thing…by throwing it casually out the window. Any minute no-

"Alright, forget about it, let's go." Naruto said.

"I was wondering when you'd say that."

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As he pulled up, Sasuke could hear the bass pounding from inside the house.

_This already seems like a bad idea, _he thought as he found a place to park. Pulling off his helmet, he locked it onto his bike, waiting for Naruto to find a spot for himself. When he finally did, the two walked up to the door.

Sakura's house was nothing special, but it wasn't a shack either. Neither Naruto nor Sasuke knew exactly what her parents did, because they had never bothered to ask. It was a simple, two story affair, painted a faded orange brown on the outside, with a simple red tile roof. From the front, they could see two windows from the second floor. On the bottom floor, they could see the large double doors, with side windows on each… well, side. To the left of the door was a large bay area window, which stuck out of the house. Though the blinds were closed, they could see the shadows of people inside. All of a sudden, Sakura's head poked through the blinds. With an ecstatic smile, she waved at the two boys, before closing the blinds again, and running to open the door.

When she disappeared, Naruto quickly ran a hand through his hair, or, as much of his hair as he could, considering he was wearing horns. The three reached the door at the same time, Sakura pulling it open, before hugging them both.

"Hi you guys. I'm so glad you could make it!" She said excitedly. One look made it completely obvious what she was going to be. A princess. With a flowing pink dress that matched her hair, Sakura looked as beautiful as they could tell she felt. Naruto himself was dumbfounded, and even Sasuke was having trouble thinking. With a huge smile, she ushered the two of them in.

"There are drinks and food in the kitchen. Oh, and don't touch that. Those are for any kids that come by." She said to Naruto, as he reached into the bowl of candy by the door. Moving his hand back to his side quickly, Naruto blushed ever so slightly.

"Well, I'm ready for a drink!" He said, darting off to avoid the odd situation.

"Sasuke, are you gonna join him?" Sakura asked, an innocent look in her eyes. Obviously, she was hoping the answer would be something along the lines of "No, I'd rather be with you" but, one can only be so hopeful.

"Yes, I do believe I am." Sasuke said, moving away towards the kitchen.

_I don't understand how people can stand that kind of attention_ he thought as he walked. On his way to the kitchen, Sasuke ran into a number of people he knew, Shikamaru was there, along with Ino (whom Sasuke hid from), and Hinata. There were a large number of people that Sasuke didn't recognize, but he understood that Sakura was a social girl, and probably had lots of other friends.

When he got to the kitchen, he found Naruto talking loudly with Kiba, holding a drink in one hand, and some food in the other. Uncomfortable, he found a counter to lean on after grabbing a drink.

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"You know…you know what?" Naruto yelled.

"No man, I don't…what?" Kiba yelled back.

"I…I love you, man."

Several hours after their arrival at the party found Naruto completely drunk, confessing his apparently undying love for his friend, Kiba.

"I love you too man….I don't know where I'd be without you."

"Uh, probably dead in a ditch without me to save you!" Naruto yelled, before the pair broke into hysterical laughter at the joke.

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"I'm never doing this agai-BLEAAHHH!" Naruto tried to say before puking his guts out into the toilet. Sasuke was left standing over him, because Kiba had passed out on the couch.

"Yeah, you'll stay sober until the next time you drink, and that's it." He said, leaning against the sink.

"What about yo-BLEAAHHH!" Naruto tried to continue.

"What about me?"

"You drank too, I saw you. And it was a lot too."

"Yeah, I drank, but I am dignified enough to remain conscious, without throwing up my guts."

"Fuck you, you bastard teme."

"Says the dobe bending over the toilet."

Naruto had a smart reply coming, but the vomit beat it out his mouth. He almost didn't duck his head back into the toilet fast enough.

"Where are your keys?" Sasuke asked

Unable to talk, Naruto waved to where his jacket was. Sasuke went over, grabbing the keys out of the pocket. When he turned around, he found Naruto standing on shaky legs, supporting himself on the sink.

"Do you think you can give me a ride?" he asked sheepishly, a slight blush on his cheeks.

"Why else would I want your keys? Anyway, get in the car, I'll be there in a minute." Sasuke said. As Naruto walked away, Sasuke moved to find Sakura, who was cleaning up empty bottles and cans in the kitchen. Stooping to help her, Sasuke spoke.

"Naruto's close to death, so I need to give him a ride home, can I leave my bike here and pick it up tomorrow?" he asked. Sakura consented, saying that she'd keep the helmet inside the house so no one would steal it. When they finished, Sasuke thanked her as he walked to the door. Before he opened it, Sasuke turned back around.

"Want me to grab Kiba while I'm at it?" he asked, nodding towards the couch right as a loud snore erupted from it. But Sakura waved him off.

"Don't worry about him. I'll throw some water on him and boot him out in the morning," she said, a small smile on her lips. Even after the party was over, Sakura's outfit was well maintained, and even Sasuke couldn't help but stare at her for a few seconds longer before smiling slightly and turning and stepping outside the door.

When he got to the car, Sasuke found Naruto, out like a light, in the passenger seat. Starting the car, he set off.

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He was about halfway to Naruto's apartment when the alcohol hit him. His eyes got blurry, and he was forced to stop for a minute on the side of the road, before he slammed into something. Luckily, it was almost 4:00 in the morning, so he wasn't endangering anyone. A few minutes later, Sasuke drove off again, but instead of continuing towards Naruto's house, he turned right at the next street, deciding that it was safer to go to his house and let Naruto stay there instead, because it was closer.

The closer he got to his house, the worse he started to feel. Blurred vision, headaches, and nausea attacked him, and he had to fight to keep it under control. Finally though, he got there. Pulling up to where he usually kept his bike, Sasuke turned off the car. Turning to poke Naruto, he spoke.

"Dobe, get up. I'm not carrying you inside," he said, trying vigorously to wake the blond up. When nothing changed, he knew what he needed to do. Getting out, he walked around to the passenger side of the car. Opening the door, he stared at Naruto. Luckily, he hadn't moved much during the drive, so it was only a matter of lifting him…and carrying him all the way to his room, but he was a football player, so he could lift the weight easily enough. With his right arm under Naruto's knees, and his left supporting his back, Sasuke heaved. As soon as he did, he was almost overcome by the dizziness and nausea that he had felt before, but he pushed it back. Kicking the door closed, Sasuke headed towards the front door of the house. When he got there, he realized the main dilemma. How the _fuck_ was he supposed to open the door?

Four minutes, and several shifts of a blonde bundle later, Sasuke finally managed to get the door open. By this point, Naruto was getting heavy, but at least he wasn't struggling. Closing the door as gently as he could with his feet, Sasuke headed towards his room.

Down the left hall, right, two lefts, another right, up the stairs, and a final left at the end of the hall found Sasuke panting under Naruto's dead weight, but at least he was at his room. By the time that he got this door open, and into the room, Sasuke's arms were dead, and he could feel Naruto slipping. Moving fast, he made it to the other side of the room, tossing Naruto onto the bed.

That was a horrible idea.

Even asleep, Naruto could apparently still be sick, which he was, forcing Sasuke to jerk him to a sitting position. All this managed to do was make sure the small amount of vomit from Naruto's mouth just landed on his own clothes, instead of anywhere else.

With a small cringe of disgust, Sasuke grabbed the bottom of Naruto's shirt, peeling it off of him. Balling it up to where the waste would be inside, he tossed it to the side. When he looked back, he also noticed that there was still some of the bile on Naruto's pants.

_Well, this is as awkward as ever. _He thought, _At least he's asleep or, unconscious rather_.

Deciding that, as weird as this would be, he'd rather not have barf all over his bedding, Sasuke undid the button on Naruto's pants, before pulling the zipper down. Starting to pull the pants down, he couldn't help but notice the blonde, almost unnoticeable hairs that ran from Naruto's navel into the hem of his blue boxers. He'd never really noticed that Naruto even _had_ hair on him, other than the mop on his head, because it was so bright, and his skin so dark, but now that he was this close, he couldn't help but notice. Putting his hand on Naruto's lower back, he lifted, allowing the jeans to move over his ass. Pulling them slowly, so as not to spill any of the vomit onto the bed, or Naruto (Because he was _not_ going to give the blonde a bath), Sasuke finally got the pants to Naruto's ankles. Glancing back up at the blonde's face, he was startled by open eyes, staring at him.

"Whatr…what are you…doing?" Naruto slurred. Sasuke didn't know what to say, so he said the first thing that came to mind.

"Taking your pants off," said, before realizing just how bad that sounded.

Luckily, Naruto had fallen back asleep. All he needed to hope for now was that the blond didn't remember this when he woke up, because Sasuke would never hear the end of it. Moving faster now, he pulled them off Naruto's feet. Bundling the pants up with the shirt, he stumbled his way to the laundry room (one of 3). He put the two clothes in the washer, threw a generous helping of soap in there as well, and set the timer. Now, all he had to do was to wait for them to finish. Otherwise, Naruto wouldn't have any clothes to wear when he woke up in the morning.

When he got back to the room, Sasuke found Naruto curled up in a ball from the cold, his back towards the door. Putting Naruto's keys, wallet, and cell phone on the book shelf by his door, Sasuke walked towards the bed, pulling off his white button down shirt. The shirt reeked of smoke and alcohol from the party, and he was all too happy to toss it into the laundry bin in the closet. Stripping his own pants as well, he emptied their pockets, placing the stuff on the book shelf next to Naruto's, before tossing the pants in with the shirt. Not wanting to wake up a drunk Naruto by ripping the covers out from under him, Sasuke grabbed a light blanket, tossing it over his shivering body.

Sliding into the bed next to Naruto, Sasuke decided to wait there until the laundry was done, and then put it in the dryer for the morning. Of course, that plan failed miserably when, five minutes later, he was asleep, a light snore slipping from his mouth on occasion.

**You like where this is going, don't you? So close, yet so far away! Anyway, hope you liked, so review!**


	7. Agh Agh

**Well...I feel like I've been here before...woah.**

**Anyway, this is chapter 7. Not much to say, other than (once again) Thanks to BelleDragon for Betaing this for me. You helped a ton. Otherwise, just read, enjoy, review, and....don'thatemeifIdon'tgetchapter8upontime**

**Enjoy!**

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_"Naruto…what are you doing?" Sasuke said quietly, staring into Naruto's eyes. Naruto couldn't help but get lost in the black circles that were Sasuke. Sure, he'd never really known what getting lost in someone's eyes actually meant, but he'd heard the phrase before. Maybe it was what he was feeling now this, odd, almost overbearing desire to just stand there and stare into them. But, this wasn't what he was doing. No, Naruto was doing something entirely different._

_"Naruto, you're touching my butt," Sasuke said. Naruto tried to respond, but he couldn't. It was, surreal. All he could do was look down and see that, sure enough, his hand had reached around Sasuke to grab a single globe in its grasp as the second hand moved around the other side._

_Shouldn't I…shouldn't I not be doing this? He thought to himself. He tried to move away, but found that he couldn't. In fact, it almost seemed that he did want to move his hand. But, that was wrong, wasn't it? He shouldn't be doing this._

_But, he was. And the weirdest thing of all was that it almost felt right._

_"Naruto, look at me," Sasuke said. Naruto's eyes dragged back up to the dark pools in front of him. As if in slow motion, their faces drew closer. Naruto closed his eyes, ever so slowly, as Sasuke's face drew towards him, their lips just centimeters apart. Closer…closer, until finally-_

-Naruto woke with a start.

_What the fuck was THAT?!_ He thought to himself as he lay there. Suddenly his eyes focused on his surroundings. Directly in front of him, just centimeters from his face, was a strange pattern. Dark blue swirls on a lighter blue background, it looked like.

It looked like the pattern on a pair of boxers.

Now, there's one thing to understand about a certain blond's sleeping habits. When home alone, Naruto is a habitual mover, never waking up in anything like the same position that he went to sleep in. This is usually repressed when he's sharing a bed with someone, but that depends on whether or not he _knows_ he's sharing a bed. Because of this dependence on knowledge, his inebriated state from the night before made him go into his usual sleeping habits, thus bringing forward his current situation.

His eyes opened wide, finally taking in what was in front of him. A pair of boxers, raised up in what could only be described as a tent. That meant…that…meant

Panicking, he didn't know what was going on. He remembered being at the party last night, but at some point during that, he must have blacked out from the drinks, he then remembered waking up in his own car, but all he remembered seeing then was the passing flashes of lights. Then, he remembered one last thing; he remembered waking up groggily to find Sasuke taking off his pants. Had he done something to Naruto? They both had been drinking at the party, but had Sasuke done something stupid? He wiggled his body a little bit. Nope, his ass didn't hurt, so that definitely wasn't it. But what if Sasuke had done something _else_?

The mere thought of this made Naruto panic. Frantically, he looked around for his clothes, but they weren't there. None of them were. This caused him to panic even more. Quickly, he rolled himself out of the bed. Looking around desperately, Naruto saw them, his keys and his stuff. Moving quickly, he grabbed the collection off of the bookcase, before sneaking out of Sasuke's room.

Moving quickly, he moved through the halls. He had no idea what time it was, or where he was, for that matter, but he didn't care. The automatic reflex to get out of that situation as soon as possible was the only thing driving him right now. He ran desperately through the halls, trying to find a way out of the house.

_Damn me, why didn't I pay more attention last time I was here_ he thought to himself as he ran. He rounded two different corners, wondering to himself how anyone found their way through this place.

One more turn found him running down a long hallway. When he was about half way down it, Naruto saw one of the doors open. Wearing sweats and brushing his teeth, Itachi Uchiha stepped out from the door. He turned to Naruto, and stopped everything. Tooth brush still in his mouth, Itachi cocked an eyebrow as an almost naked Naruto came running towards him. As he got closer, Itachi saw the panicked look in the blond's eyes. Taking the toothbrush out of his mouth, he smiled slightly.

"Down the hall, take a left, then two rights, and you'll find a stair case. Down that, take a right, and continue down the hall and you'll find the entrance," he said as the blonde came closer.

With a brief nod of thanks, Naruto hurried past Itachi, who continued to brush his teeth, before turning back towards the bathroom.

Naruto continued to run, following the directions that Itachi had given him. Finally, he reached the stairs. Bounding down them two at a time, he dashed right at the foot, heading towards the door to freedom. Suddenly, as he rounded the corner, there was a shadow. The door, that was supposed to be a link to his freedom, opened slowly, admitting a very large and very intimidating Fugaku Uchiha inside, holding the newspaper in one hand, and a steaming cup of coffee in the other. When he saw Naruto, his glare seemed to become even more menacing. However, unlike Itachi, Fugaku didn't move out of the way for Naruto to pass. Instead, he stood there, blocking the door with a disgusted look still on his face. Naruto tried to see if he could somehow move around the man, all the while not daring to look him in the eyes. However, he couldn't find any way around. Finally, dejectedly, his eyes traveled slowly up to Fugaku's face.

"What are you doing in my house dressed like this?" Fugaku asked, the anger hovering just below his deep voice. Naruto didn't know what to say.

"Sas-Sasuke…" he said, almost whimpering under the fierce glare that Fugaku was giving.

"Sasuke did what? What did you two do?" Fugaku said, stepping towards Naruto. Deciding that this was his only chance, Naruto dashed around him through the front door, and down the path to the large driveway. Searching frantically, he finally found his car, sitting there where Sasuke would normally have parked his bike. In almost a dead sprint by now, Naruto almost leapt into the car, struggling to put the key in the ignition. By this point, his mind was racing, and it felt like he was some cheesy character in a bad horror movie. However hard he tried to clear his mind, though, he found that he couldn't. There were too many things running through it at one time for him to calm down, especially when he considered that he was practically running from Sasuke's dad.

Finally getting the key into the ignition, he started the car, peeling out of the driveway as fast as he could. Finally on the open road, Naruto forced himself to calm down enough to realize just _how_ bad he looked right now. A half-naked, bed-headed blond probably wasn't going to get him into any place, so he started the drive home, happy just to get away.

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Sasuke yawned quietly as his eyes opened. Looking around groggily, he found that Naruto had left, and he wondered how long ago it had been. Trying to go back to sleep, the sound that woke him in the first place returned.

"Oi, Sasuke. I think it's about time to wake up," Itachi said. Sasuke opened his eyes again, to try and glare at Itachi, but he found the headache that he had was making it hard.

"Oh, trust me. You'll want to know what happened to Naruto," Itachi said, "it was really quite interesting, if I do say so myself." he said, the amusement obvious in his voice.

At this, Sasuke sat bolt upright, which was quickly rewarded by the pulsing pain of a hangover. Mustering the best glare he could, given his current situation, Sasuke waited for Itachi to speak. When he didn't get anything this way, he finally decided to open his mouth.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I think _I_ should be asking _you_ that question after what I saw," Itachi said, smiling. At this, Sasuke's expression changed from anger to genuine confusion.

"I have no idea what you're talking about, now what happened to Naruto this morning?" he said. Now, why the hell was he doing this? Sasuke had always tried to be closed off like his brother, but it seemed that the mere mention of Naruto possibly in trouble was getting to him. It must have been the hangover; surely it wasn't natural that thoughts like these developed after a single night, right?

"Well, what I saw this morning when I woke up was a semi-naked Naruto hauling balls through our house. Now, I _did_ mention that he was wearing nothing but his boxers, right?" Itachi asked, not even trying to keep the amusement out of his voice.

"Why was he doing that?" Sasuke asked. It wasn't the best question in the world to ask at a time like this because Itachi was waiting for it.

"Hm, I know you two went to a party last night. Are you _sure_ there isn't something that might have happened between you two that you'd like to mention? You know, a closet that you might want to step out of?" Itachi asked. When Sasuke realized what he was implying, the comment seemed to make him all the angrier.

"I AM NOT A FAG!" He yelled. What the hell was happening? Why the hell was he reacting like this? Itachi was about to continue when the door behind him opened wider. Stepping past Itachi, Fugaku slipped into the room, surprisingly agile for someone as large as he.

"What happened?" he asked, his face as blank as his voice. This alone scared Sasuke, especially considering that he was usually more vocal with his anger. Because of this fear, he didn't respond at first.

"Answer me, boy." Fugaku said, his voice raised just slightly.

"Now father, wait a min-"Itachi tried to cut in, stepping in front of their father.

"No, step back. I want to know what Sasuke did last night with that boy," he said, before rounding on Sasuke. Sasuke glanced back to Itachi, hoping for some encouragement, but getting none.

"If you did anything, _abnormal_ with that boy, then you may no longer consider yourself an Uchiha, or my son. Is that understood?" he asked.

"Yes sir," Sasuke said, lowering his head. The fact of the matter was, for the moment at least, he _couldn't_ remember what had happened the night before. This alone scared the Uchiha, but not nearly as much as the possibility of being disowned.

With nothing more to be said, Fugaku turned around, staring at Itachi. Itachi didn't look away, but continued to stare at his father right in the eyes. With one more glance back towards Sasuke, he left the room. Itachi's eyes followed him, not turning back towards Sasuke until the boy spoke up.

"I need a ride," he said. As if waking from a dream, Itachi started, before looking back towards Sasuke, a smile on his lips.

"Alright, where are we going?"

"To pick up my bike," Sasuke said, before getting out of bed. Pulling on a fresh pair of jeans and a new tee-shirt, he couldn't stop thinking about what had just happened. His father had threatened to…_disown _him. The mere idea shocked Sasuke.

On his way out the door, he reached for his wallet and cell phone on the counter. When he grabbed them, he couldn't help but notice that something about them seemed different. A closer look showed that they weren't his stuff at all. They were Naruto's. The moron had apparently grabbed Sasuke's stuff this morning when he had run out of his house bare ass naked. Thinking of this made Sasuke mad.

_If that moron hadn't run out of here like that, I wouldn't be having problems now._ He thought, this making him even angrier. Finally the two were ready to go, but before they did, Sasuke quickly sent a message to Naruto. After discovering that he was saved as "The Bastard" in the phone, he sent a text message to his phone, which was with Naruto now.

_Dobe you better have an explanation and give me my phone back. Oh and you also owe me 67 dollars._

"You ready to go?" Asked a fully dressed Itachi.

Tossing the phone back onto the counter, Sasuke turned to follow Itachi out of the room.

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Naruto lay there, spread out on his bed, not even changed from the night before. He thought about what had happened the night before, or at least what he _thought_ had happened. The idea of Sasuke possibly raping him was horrible, devastating even. Sure, his ass hadn't hurt that morning when he had woken up, but still, it could have happened.

As much as he tried to hate Sasuke for what he thought might have happened, there seemed to be a strong feeling of…something deep down inside that he hadn't identified before. What was this strange feeling? It was way too deep for Naruto to pull out and analyze at the moment, so he set it aside for a later time when he could get to it. For now though, he was caught up in the sense of anger, of _betrayal_ that he was feeling at the idea of Sasuke doing something to him. By now, he was almost determined to think that Sasuke had done _something_, whatever it was. Mostly this was due to the dream he had had the night before, but by this point he was too far gone to realize this.

_I can't believe that he would do something like that to me, the least he could have done was to ask._ He thought to himself.

Suddenly, he blinked.

What?

_The least he could have done was to ASK?_ What the hell was this? It didn't make any sense. It made it almost seem as if-

Naruto shook his head, grabbing the nearby pillow and covering his face. Surely that was slip up. Surely it wasn't something that he actually thought. But, it was his _thought_, so there was no such thing as "slipping up". Was there?

Suddenly his phone on the night stand began to shake, spitting out an annoying classical song.

_That's not my ringtone_

Scrambling, he got over to where the phone was. Reading the screen (Message from: Might Not Want To Answer), he let out a long groan. How the hell had he grabbed Sasuke's phone? Did that mean? Sure enough, he picked up the wallet that was next to the phone, and it was Sasuke's. Looking in it, he discovered that there was sixty-seven dollars in there as well, which was much more than Naruto had in _his_ wallet. Glancing around, even though he knew he was all alone, Naruto slowly took the money out of the wallet. Sliding it into his pocket, he tossed the wallet back onto the desk before grabbing the phone off the counter. Opening it, he read the message quickly, before throwing it back onto the counter, and dropping back into the pillows behind him.

_I can't believe that bastard is saying that I need to provide answers! He's the one who did…something to me last night, and he has the balls to tell me to answer to him?!_ He thought, feeling his face get hot with anger. He had to talk to someone about this, do something about it, but he couldn't think of_ what_ that something was.

With an exasperated sigh, Naruto grabbed one of the nearby pillows, smothering his face with it.

_What am I going to do?_ He thought, the question bouncing around in his mind until he finally drifted off to an uneasy sleep.

**Well...there we go. Building up the angst...because you can't have gay sex with out plenty of angst to go with it apparently...aw well. R&R please!**


	8. Just A no ther Day

**Finally, at long last, here's chapter eight of "A Day in the Life". Once again, thanks to BelleDragon for the beta, and thanks for the lack of angry letters for not getting this chapter up in time.**

**Anyway, read, enjoy, review, send me money because you love me.**

The two drove in silence. This was alright for Sasuke, seeing as how he was slowly but surely beginning to dread the moment the silence was broken. Every second that ticked by found him wanting Itachi to just hurry up and say something, but every time he thought that, he couldn't help but _not_ want Itachi to say something, and hope that he might just stay quiet throughout the whole ride.

But of course, it wasn't to be.

"So…" Itachi said before his voice trailed off into nothingness. When Sasuke volunteered no response, he sighed.

"Is there anything you _do_ remember about what must have been a positively glorious night?" He asked, a cocky smile on his face.

Sasuke decided not to dignify the comment with a response. This decision didn't really go well with Itachi, who suddenly pulled over onto the side of the road. Throwing the car into park, he turned to face Sasuke.

"Alright, look. You better start remembering what happened last night if you want to stay in this family according to our father. What I saw this morning was a boy wearing nothing but his underwear running through our house," he said.

Sasuke swallowed.

"Now, I don't know about you, but that fact seems pretty interesting, especially when you combine it with the fact that, as far as we know, you're lying about whether or not anything happened between you two last night. These two things together present a pretty strong case if our father was to suddenly decide that you were gay with your best friend. And we both don't want that," he said, staring Sasuke right in the eyes.

Sasuke didn't really know what to say. He couldn't remember what happened the night before, all he got when he tried was a fuzzy mental image of him taking Naruto's pants off, but that couldn't be right.

Could it?

"You can say something any time now. Whatever it is," Itachi said.

"Look, I can't really remember what happened last night, but I know that we didn't do anything like…like that," Sasuke answered, breaking eye contact with Itachi at the last moment.

"What _do_ you remember? Surely you didn't get so plastered that you can't remember anything that happened?" Itachi asked again.

The same fuzzy mental image flashed up in Sasuke's mind. Him, pulling Naruto's pants down, revealing his annoyingly bright orange and blue boxers, with the button just over his…

"I…I don't remember anything," He said, trying to banish the image from his mind. But it wouldn't go away.

"You're lying," Itachi said.

Sasuke looked over at him, not saying anything.

"Alright, that's fine. If you do remember something, which I think you do, and you don't want to say it, that's alright with me. If you do want to say it, I'm all ears for whenever you decide to do so. However, if you're going to keep quiet like this about what happened, you better be ready to accept the consequences," he said, before throwing the car back into drive and pulling back onto the road.

The two didn't talk the rest of the ride to Sakura's house. When they got there, Sasuke thanked Itachi quickly, before getting out and shutting the door behind him. While Itachi drove off, Sasuke went up to Sakura's door, just to tell her that he was coming by to get the bike. He rang the doorbell twice before she answered, groggy-eyed, but with a slight smile none the less.

"Kiba isn't still here, is he?" Sasuke asked.

"Actually yeah, he is. You just woke me up, so I haven't had a chance to kick him out yet," Sakura said, smiling a little more.

"I can do it for you, if you want me to. I kinda need to talk to him about something anyways," Sasuke offered.

Sakura accepted, and Sasuke moved past her to where Kiba was lying on the couch. Grabbing his ear, he twisted, which didn't take long before Kiba woke with a roar.

"What the hell was that for?!" he asked, confused and groggy at the same time.

"You're leaving, and I need to talk to you," Sasuke said simply.

Kiba looked Sasuke in the eyes for a minute before getting up from the couch, and shaking himself awake.

"Grab your stuff and c'mon," Sasuke said. Sakura held the door open for the two of them as they walked out, Kiba still shaking his head, trying to clear his tired vision. With a quiet goodbye, the two stepped out onto the porch while Sakura closed the door behind them. While they walked to their respective vehicles, Sasuke spoke.

"Naruto freaked out about something last night. Since he's probably not going to talk to me, I need you to tell him to call me whenever he's done panicking. Can you handle that?" he asked.

"Yeah yeah, fine. Whatever."

"You better do it, this is important."

Kiba waved him off with his hand before getting into his car.

"I'll do it, I'll do it. Now just stop bugging me," he said.

Closing the door practically in Sasuke's face, Kiba started up his car, which sounded like it was about to erupt into flames at a moment's notice.

Sasuke watched as he drove away, he could almost swear that he saw something fall off of the bottom of the car, but he wasn't entirely sure. With a quiet sigh, he mounted his own bike, sliding his helmet on, before starting it up with a healthy roar, and taking off.

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The sunlight wouldn't go away.

Naruto tried desperately to ignore it, trying to keep sleeping, completely ignoring the fact that he was awake in order to avoid the light in the first place. Rolling over away from the window, he finally thought that he'd done it, but the light just simply bounced off of his mirror that was set up beside his bed, getting right back into his eyes.

With an angry grunt, he finally sat up, rubbing his eyes. A quick glance at the alarm clock showed that he had managed to sleep for only about two hours. Usually, something like sleeping happened as natural as bears shitting in the woods, but today he couldn't seem to get to sleep any more. He tried to ignore the memories of the night before, but he was failing miserably. That was why he had tried to sleep in the first place, to get away from those thoughts and feelings, if only for a little while. However, even sleep seemed unable to keep the thoughts away. They continued to nag at him, even in his dreams.

_Damnit, this is so stupid,_ he thought to himself.

Deciding that sleep was now a lost cause, Naruto rolled out of bed, stretching like a cat, before finally…lying back down. Today just _wasn't_ his day, no matter how hard he tried to ignore it. Worst off, he had to go to school tomorrow, and that meant that he would have to see Sasuke again, and probably talk to him. The mere idea of having to talk to someone about what might have happened that Saturday night scared the shit out of him. As much as he didn't care what people typically thought of him, he couldn't imagine what he would do if people found out what had happened. He would be called gay all the time, and probably get into more than one fight over it, in order to defend his honor. And it was all thanks to that bastard.

_Damnit, I've gotta do something with myself today, this is _not _working out for me,_ he thought again.

Rolling out of bed one final time, he was about to pull his pants on when the doorbell rang.

_Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, _he thought, panicking.

"Naruto, open up, it's Kiba!" the voice outside yelled. With an open sigh of relief, Naruto quickly finished throwing on his clothes, a pair of jeans and a black and red T-shirt, before running to the door to open it for Kiba. When the door opened, Naruto could tell that Kiba didn't want to be there, he looked like he'd much rather be at home sleeping.

"Hey, I really don't want to be here, I'd rather be at home sleeping, but Sasuke worries me, and he asked me to tell you something. Well, more like he _demanded_ that I tell you something. He said that you're a moron and that you need to call him,' Kiba said.

Naruto's eyes widened just slightly at the name Sasuke, not sure if Kiba had any idea of what had happened. Then he realized that it was Sasuke that he was talking about, he was sure that he wouldn't go around telling everyone that something had happened, whatever that something might have been.

"Alright, thanks," Naruto said, closing the door practically on Kiba's face. Too tired to care, Kiba turned and left, leaving Naruto once again, alone.

Deciding that he needed to do something that would get his mind off of the current situation, Naruto grabbed his keys. Heading out to his car, he pondered what he was going to do. Finally deciding to go to the mall to kill as much time as possible, he went outside, getting into his car and taking off.

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Sasuke pulled up into the driveway of his house. Peeling off his helmet, he dismounted his bike, lazily walking towards the main entryway of the house. He noticed that Itachi hadn't come home, even though he'd left earlier than Sasuke had. Whatever, it didn't really matter to him at the moment. He had much more pressing things to think about than where Itachi had gone for the day.

About halfway to the house, Sasuke stopped.

_This isn't going to get me anywhere,_ he thought. _I need to do something other than be at home._

Spinning on his heel, he walked back to his bike. He was dressed respectably enough to go out for a bit, so he decided that he might as well do that. Now where to go? That was the question.

Finally deciding to start off at the mall and work his way around town from there, he put his helmet back on, started up his bike and took off.

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Naruto pulled into the parking space. Shutting the car off, he climbed out, locking the doors before heading towards the front entrance of the mall.

_I don't even know what I'm gonna do here,_ he thought to himself. All he knew was that it was bound to get his mind off of what it was currently on. At least, he hoped it would.

When he pushed open the double doors to the mall, he was hit by the wall of sound. It was a Sunday, which meant that the mall was relatively empty compared to a usual day, but still, Konoha was one of the biggest cities in the Fire Nation, and therefore had plenty of people to fill up a mall such as this.

Deciding that he'd might as well start off with something to eat, Naruto walked towards the nearest coffee shop, a little foreign place. He personally hated coffee, but the muffins in this place were excellent, albeit a bit expensive. Okay, more like _really_ expensive, but still, he didn't feel like worrying about money at the moment.

A blueberry muffin and a soda later found Naruto sitting at one of the outside tables, facing the busy central area of the mall. To his left was a large play area in the shape of a boat, which was swarmed with little kids of all different shapes and sizes as they scrambled to try and be captain of the F.N.S. Hokage.

When he was done with the muffin and drink, Naruto got up to throw his stuff away. As he did so, he thought about what to do next. Deciding in the end that, whatever it was would involve going to the restroom first, he headed off in that direction to the right of where he was sitting.

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Sasuke entered through the main entrance of the mall. Deciding to blow past the coffee shop, even though it looked pretty good, he moved right on by the restroom, and into the first clothing store that he saw. He didn't really plan on buying anything, but he could if had wanted to. Drifting through the store, he didn't really see anything that struck his interest.

Deciding to move on, he left the first store, moving into the book store next door, hoping he might find something more interesting in there.

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Naruto ducked out of the restroom, hoping to be out of there before anyone noticed the smell that he had left behind. It wasn't his fault that ramen had a tendency to destroy his digestive tract. It's not like he could like, stop eating ramen. That would be a sin.

He walked right past the first clothing store that he saw, it would definitely be too expensive, and almost ran past the bookstore. He had a tendency to avoid places like that like the plague. Sasuke had always tried to get him to read, saying that it might calm him down or something.

_Sasuke,_ the thought suddenly jumped into his mind. Shaking his head slightly in a vain effort to clear his mind, he stopped walking. Taking one more look into the bookstore, he decided that he might as well give it a shot, see what would happen.

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Sasuke continued to walk through the aisles in the book store, looking for something that might strike his interest. Deciding to take a look at the bottom shelf, because that was what usually held some of the best books, he ducked down.

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Naruto drifted slowly through the aisles, looking at the cover art, hoping to find something that might interest him. However hard he tried though, his mind kept jumping back to a certain pale friend of his.

_Sasuke_, he thought again. The name sounded different to him at the moment, for some reason that he couldn't pick up on. As much as he was trying, he couldn't keep the name from repeating it's self in his mind over and over. Finally deciding to just grab a random book ("Sex for Dummies"), he found the nearest chair and plopped down on it, trying to concentrate on the section on foreplay. Even with the weird looks that he got from people walking by, he never really registered the book that he was reading, his mind was so lost at the moment. Still, his eyes drifted across some of the words, picking up a few here and there.

_Part 1…I will give you information…fully enjoy good sex…_

_What the? What the bloody hell am I-?_

He flipped the book around, looking at the cover. Reading it quickly, his eyes widened.

_What the _fuck_ is this?! How the hell do I end up grabbing this of all books while I'm thinking of Sasuke? This is ridiculous._

Closing the book quickly, he dropped it with a thud onto the table in front of him. Closing his eyes, he rest his head in his hands, leaning it back into a more relaxed position.

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Sasuke finally rose with a book in his hand deciding that this was enough for today; he walked past the seating area to the register. After checking out, he turned and left the store. Deciding that that was enough time wasted so far for today, he quickly left the mall. He never really stayed there for very long without Naruto, because he had a tendency to avoid noisy places like this as much as possible.

Books in hand, he pushed his way through the double doors leading outside, and headed towards his bike.

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Naruto finally decided that he was bored. As much as his mind was distracted with its current predicament, he still had enough mental power to be bored out of his mind in a bookstore. Deciding that he'd rather be walking around the mall than sulking in the store, he rose quickly, leaving the room.

An hour later found Naruto still in the mall, a large bag from the candy store in his hand, munching contently on the sour strips that he had bought minutes before. For the moment at least, his mind was wandering, thinking about everything from ramen to the smell that he left behind in the bathroom earlier that day.

Suddenly, it happened.

Again.

_Sasuke,_ the thought flew through his mind briefly, followed quickly by the mental images that seemed to always be associated with that name. A fuzzy darkness, the only thing visible clearly being Sasuke's pale face, framed as it was by his dark hair. But it was what he was doing that was most disturbing, taking Naruto's pants off. The idea of something like that happening scared him. And Naruto didn't like being scared.

Suddenly a new thought came to mind. It wasn't even so much as a thought, as just an instinct; one of those thoughts that are made through no conscious effort on the person's behalf. Naruto often called them sneaky bastards. It was a thought that usually stopped him from messing with retarded people. He suddenly couldn't remember what it was called, something like a…conscience?

_Did I…like it?_

No. That was impossible. There was no way in _hell_ that he could possibly have liked it. That would be insane.

That would mean that he was-

_Screw this. I'm getting out of here, _he thought.

He rose from his seat quickly, his mood suddenly as sour as the candy he was eating. Heading towards the exit, his mind was racing.

_What am I supposed to do about this? This is pissing me off and ruining my day, which it really shouldn't,_ he thought. _Fuck this, I need to talk to someone about what happened, get some damn advice. God knows I can't talk to Sasuke about it, he'd probably deny it, maybe even say it was all my fault, the bastard._

About halfway to his car, he stopped.

_Who the hell am I supposed to call? Kiba would probably disown my ass, Shikamaru wouldn't answer in the first place, and there's really no one else. Except maybe…that's it, Sakura! She's the only one that's spent a lot of time with me and Sasuke, so she might understand what the hell is going on here better than me. Plus, she's a girl, so she _must_ be good at this emotional bullshit,_ he concluded. _But, what if she laughs at me? Well, I could always just punch her in the face if she does that._

His plan was perfect.

By now he had reached his car, and was getting inside. Before starting his baby up, he pulled out his phone, or really Sasuke's phone since the bastard had switched them. Looking through the phone book, he tried to find Sakura's number, but it wasn't there. He went to every variation of her name that he could think of, 'Beautiful', 'Awesome', he even tried just plain old 'Sakura', but the number wasn't in there. It didn't make sense that anyone _wouldn't _use one of those words.

_Just my luck, _he thought. _I would need to talk to her on Sasuke's phone after he avoids her like the plague. I can't believe that he wouldn't even have her number in his phone. I didn't know he didn't like her_ that _much._

Finally deciding that he was out of options, he decided that he would do what needed to be done. Instead of going home, he took a right at the next street, taking him towards Sakura's house.

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Naruto pulled into her driveway a short time later. Suddenly, he was losing his nerve about the whole thing. Maybe he could just handle this himself. You know, just go punch Sasuke in the face and start the whole thing over? Even as he thought about this stupid plan, he knew that it wouldn't work like that. With the addition of his subconscious' addition to his thought process, he knew that he couldn't go back and redo anything .

Turning off his car, he climbed out. Approaching the front door slowly, the whole time debating with himself, trying to force himself to go somewhere, do something else, something other than this.

Next thing he knew, he was standing in front of the door. Slowly but surely, his hand became self aware, rising against his will towards the door.

Grabbing the knocker, he knocked three times...

**Hope you liked! Once again, review so I know that a few people are reading this thing at least. Chapter nine will be up whenever I get around to it! **


	9. When All That I Want

***le gasp* C-could it be?! It-it-it is! It's chapter 9! OMG! ROFLCOPTER! LMAO! ROFLMAO! ROFLMAOROFLCOPTER!**

**Okay, I'm done. ANYWAY...here's chapter 9 for your viewing pleasure. I'd love to do what a lot of other authors seem to do here, and tell you a story about my life that justifies me not writing, but...I'm just not THAT interesting. In all honesty, I haven't been writing because...I didn't feel like it. I have all the time in the world, just not a lot of drive. I think you guys should drive me ;) **

**Once again, thanks to BelleDragon for betaing/cattle prodding me to write, and also thanks to all the comments that I get. I'm not gonna call people out at rape them in text as a thanks, I'll just say thanks to everyone. THANKS!**

**Anyway, enjoy!**

…nothing happened.

_Hm, is she…home?_ He thought to himself.

Knocking again, he waited for about another minute. When that, and a few doorbell rings didn't work, Naruto finally looked out at their driveway. No cars were there.

_Damnit. Just my luck to have her not be here,_ he thought, before turning around.

With this part of his master plan ruined, Naruto had no idea what to do. He hadn't planned this far ahead, so concerned he was with just getting to talk to Sakura about what was happening to him.

Not knowing what else to do, Naruto got back into his car. He sat there for a moment, pondering what exactly he could do with this newly discovered free time. Deciding finally to just drive around for a bit until she showed up, he got back into his car.

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Sasuke pulled into his house. Resting his bike in its same old spot it always went. Climbing off, he took his helmet off before walking inside the house. Itachi _still_ hadn't shown up since he'd dropped Sasuke off at Sakura's earlier that morning. He couldn't help but wonder what _exactly _Itachi could be doing, seeing as how, since he was on leave from the military, and was scheduled to return within the next couple months, he only had a limited time with which he could spend with the rest of the family.

By the time he got to his room, Sasuke was noticing just how tired he was after what all had happened in the past twenty four hours. Pulling the book out of the bag that he had gotten in the mall earlier, he lay down on his bed, intent to read. After about five minutes however, he was out like a light, snoring quietly.

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A few hours later Naruto was almost out of gas, but he decided that he had wasted enough time. Pulling into the nearest gas station, he filled his car up, watching pitifully as his wallet lost more of the already small amount of money that was inside it.

Climbing back into his car, he started it up again, heading once more to Sakura's house. The whole way there, his mind continued to ponder the same thoughts that it had throughout the whole day.

_There's no way I could have liked it, is there? I mean, if I was…I surely would have noticed it by now, right?_ He thought to himself while he drove. _Damnit, this is bullshit. I can't believe I've wasted this whole day doing this shit._

By now he had pulled up to Sakura's house. Happy to see cars in the driveway this time, he pulled up behind them. Getting out, he walked to the front door again. His hand was raised, ready to knock, when the door opened suddenly. Sakura ran into him, almost falling flat as she bounced off. Being that Naruto was five inches taller than her, he barely even noticed.

"Uhh, Naruto? What are you doing here?" She asked, confused.

"I need to talk to you," Naruto said, a hand instinctively going back to the back of his head to scratch. Suddenly, he really didn't want to be there in front of her house.

She threw him an angry look for a few seconds before realizing that something _did_ look weird about him at the moment. He looked almost…scared. The idea that someone with Naruto's ego could allow himself to look scared in front of someone like her had seemed impossible, but, here he was, openly bothered about something. Now she was determined to find out what that something was.

"Um, alright then," she said, looking around for a second.

"Well, I was about to go get something to eat, so why don't you just come with me? We can take your car."

Naruto's face brightened slightly.

"You mean, like a da-"

"Or I can just hit you and go by myself, it's up to you," Sakura said, smiling slightly.

"Oh alright, kill all my fun," Naruto said, smiling now. This made Sakura feel slightly better.

The two drove in silence. They came up to the fast food place that Sakura had mentioned before, but Naruto drove right past it.

"What are you doing? I thought we were going to eat?" Sakura said, completely confused.

"We are, but just not there," Naruto replied, staring straight forward.

"Well, then where the heck are we going?" Sakura asked, still as confused as ever, and getting slightly angry now.

Naruto didn't answer. Instead, he kept driving, and Sakura kept worrying. She worried until he finally decided to speak.

"I need to test something. It goes with what I want to talk to you about; I'll tell you about it then."

Sakura didn't really know what to say. She was in his car, he was driving, and they were friends, so it was doubtful that he would try to kidnap her or anything. Finally she decided to just sit back and go wherever they were going.

Where they were going ended up being one of the nicer restaurants in Konoha, more towards the downtown middle of the city than the outskirts where they lived. When Naruto pulled into the parking lot, Sakura knew what he was doing almost instantly. He was taking her on a date, whether she wanted to go on one or not.

When he finally parked the car, Naruto sat back, hands still on the wheel.

"Sorry I didn't say anything, I just know that you'd throw a fit if I said that I was taking you on a date," he said, his face blank.

_Okay, I know something's wrong with him now,_ she thought, even though she didn't say anything. The two went inside, getting a booth that was away from the larger group of people so that they could talk privately.

When they were seated, but before the waiter showed up, Sakura grabbed Naruto's arms across the table, forcing him to look at her in the eyes.

"What's wrong?" She asked, concerned now.

"I'll explain after we ea-"

"Hi, how are you to tonight?" A waitress asked, entirely too cheery for someone who was at work. The two ordered what they wanted to drink, and the waitress disappeared for a while to get them. When she brought them, they had already decided what it was that they were going to eat, so they ordered, content to wait in silence until their food came.

It wasn't until they were entirely done with their meal, the check sitting on the table, that Sakura finally decided that she had had enough.

"Naruto, we haven't talked about anything worthwhile since we've gotten here. The whole reason we _are_ here is because I thought you had something important to say," she said. By this point she was getting angry.

"If you're not going to say what it is that you wanted to say, I don't know why I'm wasting my time."

Naruto still didn't say anything; instead, he just looked at the empty spot on the table where his plate was moments before.

Sakura almost wanted to leave, but every time she'd think about it, she'd look back at Naruto, who looked like he was bordering on suicidal, and it convinced her to stay. Apparently, whatever it was that he wasn't saying must be really dep-

"I think I might be gay."

The silence was deafening.

Sakura didn't know what to say. She kept staring at him, waiting for Naruto to say something along the lines of "I'm kidding", but it never came. Finally, she asked the worst question possible.

"Are you...are you sure?"

"Of course I'm not sure. I just think that I might be. I haven't been able to stop thinking abou-" he stopped.

"About what?" Sakura persisted. She was interested now; the idea that Naruto was gay was ludicrous.

"About Sasuke."

Sakura's mouth opened slightly. She couldn't believe it. Naruto thought he was gay for his _best friend_?

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Sasuke woke to the grumble in his stomach. He tried to keep sleeping, but the feelings wouldn't go away until finally he rolled out of bed. Yawning silently, he slowly but surely left the room, moving through the house towards the front door.

He got outside, heading towards his bike. He had decided that he didn't want to try finding food in the house, instead he was going to head out for a bit, try to find something better out down town. Starting up the bike, he took off.

_I wonder what that dobe's doing?_ He thought as he drove

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"Why do you think this? This doesn't make any sense. You've been madly in love with me for years, I thought. What the heck happened to make you change your mind?" she said.

So Naruto told her. He told her everything that happened from the time that he woke up, what he remembered, what he _thought_ he remembered, and what he had been thinking about that whole day. When he finished, she didn't know what to say for a while.

"Is that why you brought me here? To see if you still liked me?" she asked. By Naruto's reaction, she knew that she'd hit the jackpot.

"Well…?" she asked, waiting.

"I…I don't know," he said, cradling his head in his hands on the table

"Are you, are you sure?" she asked. Naruto threw himself back against the seat at this comment.

"Of course I'm not sure. That's why I'm so damn confused."

"Well, have you said anything to him?"

Naruto just stared at her after this statement.

"You're kidding, right?"

"Actually, no I'm not. What are you planning on doing if you finally realize that you have a crush on your best friend? You just gonna ignore him completely and never mention it again and hope that this whole thing will just go away?"

"Well, when you say it like that, you make it sound like a bad idea."

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Sasuke continued through downtown. He was in the nicer area, but he suddenly found himself not really wanting to eat anything from any of the places nearby. Finally, he decided to just pull into a fast food chain that was popular, and therefore packed with people his age. Of course, being that he was an Uchiha, Sasuke avoided everyone in the building, lodging himself into a booth in the back corner, out of the way.

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Sakura rolled her eyes. She couldn't believe that Naruto could actually think like he was right now.

"That's a load of crap and you know it," she said, starting to get angry now, "You two've been friends for as long as I can remember. You really think that you can ignore him like that just because you found out that you may like him as more than a friend?"

Naruto just looked at her, not sure what to say.

"Well, what's wrong with ignoring this whole thing? Who's to say that I can't just act like this never happened, and we continue on like normal?" Naruto said, getting defensive.

"Of course you can't ignore this. If you think that you like Sasuke like you _just_ said you did, then don't you think that that will change your relationship even a little?"

"No I don't," Naruto refused, even though in his mind, he was starting to see her point. How _could _he just go on living like normal? After what might have happened, after all he _thought_ about throughout the day. Even Naruto couldn't deny the fact that something had changed between him and Sasuke. It was just scary as hell to try and think about what that something might be.

"Alright, you win," he said, giving up.

"I win?" Sakura asked, confused. "Naruto, I don't want to 'win'. I'm saying this because I think it might be true, and if it is, and you're trying to ignore it, I'll do what I can to stop my two friends from hating each other."

Naruto looked up at her to see her smiling slightly at him.

"Look, just _talk_ to him about it. It's Sasuke, what's the worst he could do? Now c'mon, let's go," she said, getting up.

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Sasuke was done. Getting up, he dropped his tray off at the garbage can. It was almost weird to think that he had actually spent an entire day without the dobe bugging him in any way shape or form. He wouldn't say that he missed Naruto necessarily; just that it was different not having him around.

Deciding that there wasn't much else for him to do that night, Sasuke left the restaurant, heading towards his bike. That was when he saw them.

Naruto and Sakura were about halfway to Naruto's car when Sasuke spotted them. He wondered what was going on almost instantly, because Sakura was never one to go out with Naruto, much less on what looked like a date.

He stood there, out of sight of the two, who seemed to be in deep conversation, until they drove off in Naruto's car in the direction of Sakura's house.

He suddenly found himself getting annoyed. As he watched them drive off in the direction of Sakura's house, he couldn't help but feel almost betrayed that Naruto wouldn't say anything about this to him. Sure, he wasn't talking to him at all, but still, it was annoying.

_Why are you getting mad?_

He stopped for a second. Why the heck was he getting mad? What Naruto did was Naruto's business, wasn't it? Sasuke didn't need to know about everything that Naruto did, did he? Even as he tried to reason with himself, there was still that glimmer of anger at the idea that something was being hidden from him.

_What are we, a couple?_ he thought, getting mad at the fact that he was getting mad.

Deciding finally to just talk to Sakura about it all tomorrow, Sasuke mounted his bike and started off in the direction of home.

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Naruto slowed the car to a stop outside Sakura's house. They hadn't said much of anything on the way there, so Naruto couldn't wait for her to leave. But, being that she was Sakura, she didn't.

"So, are you going to talk to him about it?" she asked.

"I don't know, I'll think about it."

"You really should, you know. I know you don't want to hear it again, but you need to talk to him, otherwise this won't ever go away," she finished, before getting out of the car. She was about to close the door, when she suddenly remembered something.

"Hey Naruto, you never actually answered my question about whether or not this date made you feel anything different," she asked, leaning on the door.

Naruto didn't know what to say. So, he didn't say anything. Instead, he backed out of the driveway as fast as he could, forcing Sakura to almost have to jump to get out of his way or else get hit by the still open passenger side door.

Watching him leave, Sakura couldn't help but smile slightly. Sure, he had just about floored her with the door of his car, but she didn't seem to mind as much as she probably should have.

She watched him as he rounded the corner of the block, out of sight. With a slight sigh, she turned, going back into her house.

**Alright, there you go. Thanks for reading, and I'll try to have chapter 10 up sometime within the next week or two.**


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